Sindhu stays afloat

Bangkok: Olympic silver medallist P V Sindhu was the only bright spot on a dismal day for Indian badminton as she progressed to the quarter-finals with a straight-game win at the US $350,000 Thailand Open World Super 500 tournament, in Bangkok, on Thursday.

On a day when Indian shuttlers found the going tough, world No. 3 Sindhu, who clinched the silver medal at the Commonwealth Games, continued her impressive run with a 21-16, 21-14 victory over Hong Kong's Yip Pui Yin to set up a meeting with the United States’s Soniia Cheah on Friday.

2014 Commonwealth Games champion Parupalli Kashyap put up a brave fight before going down 18-21, 21-18, 19-21 to Japan's Kanta Tsuneyama, while fourth seed H S Prannoy lost 18-21, 14-21 to Indonesia's Sony Dwi Kuncoro.

The Indian men's doubles pair of Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy also played some good badminton but could not get past the Japanese world No. 16 duo of Hiroyuki Endo and Yuta Watanabe, going down 24-22, 13-21, 19-21 in 66 minutes.

The mixed doubles Indian pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Ashwini Ponnappa lost 11-21, 16-21 to the Japanese combo of Yuki Kaneko and Mayu Matsumoto.

Sindhu was never under pressure and led 7-3 at one stage in the opening game before extending it to 14-7 and 19-11.

Pui Yin tried to make a comeback and narrowed the deficit to 16-19 but the Indian easily pocketed the first game.

In the second game, Sindhu opened up an 8-4 lead. Again Pui Yin reduced it, scoring three straight points, but the Indian raced to 12-7 and eventually shut the door on her opponent.