All England Badminton Championship: Nehwal, Srikanth sail into second round, Sindhu exists early

Nehwal dint break much sweat to defeat Scotland’s Kristy Gilmour 21-17, 21-18 in just 35 minutes while Srikanth was in all conquering form packing off Frenchman Brice Leverdez 21-13, 21-11 on an otherwise forgettable day for the Indian contingent.

Saina Nehwal (Source: ANI)

London: After PV Sindhu's early exit from the All England Badminton championships, Saina Nehwal and Kidambi Srikanth brought cheers to Indian fans by registering straight games victories over their respective opponents to advance to the second round of the Super Series event in Birmingham on Wednesday. Nehwal dint break much sweat to defeat Scotland’s Kristy Gilmour 21-17, 21-18 in just 35 minutes while Srikanth was in all conquering form packing off Frenchman Brice Leverdez 21-13, 21-11 on an otherwise forgettable day for the Indian contingent. Nehwal maintained her impressive winning record against the Scottish girl and will now face Denmark’s Line Kjaersfeldt in the second round. While Nehwal was clinical, Srikanth showed that he was well geared up for the BWF World Tour Super 1000 event as he was in full control of his game in his clash with Leverdez. The former world number one, who had to save a match point at the same stage against the Frenchman last season, was hardly troubled by the conditions or the opponent as he set up a second round clash against Asian Games gold medallist Jonatan Christie of Indonesia. Earlier, the day did not being on a good note for the Indians as fifth seed and pre-tournament favourite P V Sindhu against Korea’s Sung Ji Hyun despite saving eight match points while all the doubles pairs in fray were knocked out in the first round itself. Women’s doubles combination of Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy came within a point of upsetting seventh seeds Shiho Tanaka and Koharu Yonemoto 16-21, 26-28, 21-16 in 77 minutes. The Indian pair saved seven game points in the second game and had a match point of their own but could not convert the same.