Text & Visuals: Rajeev Bhatt
New Delhi, Jan 16: Former champion PV Sindhu rekindled memories of her old aggressive self up and coming Kiran George kept his nerves under pressure to register straight game wins while the men’s doubles combination of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty came back from a game down to advance to the quarter-finals of the Yonex-Sunrise India Open 2025, a HSBC BWF World Tour Super 750 event, at the KD Jadhav Indoor Hall here on Thursday.
Sindhu, playing only her second tournament since the Paris Olympics, hammered Japan’s Manami Suizu 21-15, 21-13.While that match kept the badminton fans at the edge of their seats, Sindhu and Kiran gave them enough reasons to celebrate.
Having spent over six months on the side-lines, Sindhu had looked rusty in the opening match against Shuo Yun Sung of Chinese Taipei in the opening round. But the former world champion played aggressively against Suizu by going for winners from both sides of the court.
After the initial exchanges, Sindhu raced to a 13-6 lead in the opening game and though Suizu narrowed the gap to 14-13, the Indian star always looked in control and he again opened a big gap. The second game saw complete domination of Sindhu, who found cross court winners at will.
“After a break, what I liked about my game today was my movement and my attacks were working well. Moving forward, I need to be ready for anything because matches will get harder,” said Sindhu, who will now face Indonesian fourth seed Gregoria Mariska Tunjung, who defeated another Japanese Natsuki Nadaira 21-12, 24-22 in the other second round clash.
It was not a fruitful day for the other Indian contenders in the fray with women’s doubles combination of Ashwini Ponnappa/Tanisha Crasto, Rutuparna Panda/Swetaparna Panda and mixed doubles pairs of Dhruv Kapila/Tanisha and Ashith Surya/Amrutha Pramuthesh getting knocked out in the second round.
Dhruv and Tanisha played their hearts out against eighth seeds Hiroki Midorikawa and Natsu Saito of Japan but ended on the losing end of the 21-18, 21-17 score-line. Later Tanisha and Ashwini also had a mixed day in office as they lost 9-21, 21-23 against Japan’s Yuki Fukushima and Mayu Matsumoto.