Srikanth, Sindhu advance at Badminton World Championships
Nanjing (China), Aug 1: Indian stars Kidambi Srikanth and P.V. Sindhu registered contrasting wins to enter the third round of the men's and women's singles categories respectively at the Badminton World Championships here on Wednesday.
Srikanth registered a hard fought win over Pablo Abian of Spain while Sindhu had a much easier day in office, easing to a straight games victory over Fitriani of Indonesia.
The fifth seeded Srikanth needed more than an hour to clinch a 21-15, 12-21, 21-14 victory over his unseeded opponent.
He will face another unseeded opponent in American Daren Liew in the next round. The American defeated Misha Zilberman of Israel 21-16, 21-16 in the second round.
The first game was a closely fought see-saw affair before Srikanth clinched four back-to-back points to reach game point at 20-13. Although the Spaniard managed to reduce the deficit, it was not enough to prevent the Indian from taking the opening game.
Abian made a strong comeback in the second game. He went into the break with a narrow 11-10 lead and took the game away from Srikanth immediately after the restart with an awe inspiring run of seven consecutive points.
The third and decisive game was also a neck-and-neck fight, but the Indian held his own in the closing stages to clinch the issue.
Later in the day, Sindhu did not encounter too many problems, registering a 21-14, 21-9 victory over Fitriani.
The only period of the match when Fitriani managed to match Sindhu was during the early stages of the opening game. But Sindhu took charge after the break, taking six consecutive points to build up a comfortable lead which she never relinquished.
The Hyderabad shuttler completely dominated the second game, scoring almost at will to simply blow away the Indonesian's challenge.
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Rickelton's ton in vain as SRH beat MI by 6 wickets
Mumbai (PTI): Ryan Rickelton's whirlwind unbeaten ton was overshadowed by Heinrich Klaasen's unbeaten 65 as Sunrisers Hyderabad defeated Mumbai Indians by six wickets in an IPL match here on Wednesday.
Chasing an imposing 244-run target, Travis Head (76 off 30) and Abhishek Sharma (45 off 24) shared 129 runs for the opening wicket to set the platform for SRH.
Klaasen (65 not out off 30 balls) then displayed his all-round hitting abilities to guide SRH home with the help of Nitish Kumar Reddy (21) and Salil Arora (30 not out off 10) in 18.4 overs.
Earlier, Rickelton's knock powered MI to 243 for five.
MI rode on a 93-run stand between Rickelton (123 not out off 55 balls) and Will Jacks (46 off 22) in 7.1 overs for the opening stand to power the side.
MI skipper Hardik Pandya scored a valuable 31 off 15 balls before being dismissed.
Praful Hinge (2/54), Eshan Malinga (1/29), Sakib Hasan (1/39) and Nitish Kumar Reddy (1/31) were the wicket-takers for SRH.
Brief Scores:
Mumbai Indian: 243 for 5 in 20 overs (Ryan Rickelton 123 not out; Praful Hinge 2/54).
Sunrisers Hyderabad: 249 for 4 in 18.4 overs (Travis Head 76, Heinrich Klaasen 65 not out; AM Ghazanfar 2/51).
