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Saina Nehwal and Kidambi Srikanth clinched comprehensive victories over their respective opponents to begin their stint at the BWF World Championships on Tuesday.
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Saina defeated Turkey’s Aliye Demirbag 21-17, 21-8 in the second round to set up an encounter with 2013 champion Ratchanok Inthanon of Thailand in the next round. The Indian shuttler, who has won bronze and silver medals in previous editions of the BWF championships got a bye in the first round.
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Kidambi Srikanth got the better of Ireland’s Nhat Nguyen 21-15, 21-16 in his opening game to join his fellow mates HS Prannoy, Sameer Verma. Furthermore, B Sai Praneeth also joined the list as he received the same favour as Saina did in the first round. His opponent, Korea’s Son Wan Ho pulled out in the second round. Kidambi Srikanth who triumphed in four tournaments last season will face Spain’s Pablo Abian in next round. Whereas, Praneeth will take on Pablo’s compatriot from Spain, Luís Enrique Penalver.
Elsewhere, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Ashwini Ponnappa survived a stiff challenge against Mark Lamsfuss and Isabel Herttrich from Germany. They won 10-21, 21-17, 21-18 to enter the next round.
Sadly, the highly rated men’s doubles pair of Arjun MR and Ramchandran Shlok fell in the opening encounter itself. They lost 14-21, 15-21 against the Malaysian’s Ong Yew Sin and Teo Ee Yi.
Tarun Kona and Saurabh Sharma also lost their opening men’s doubles round, losing 20-22 21-18 17-21 to Chin Chung and Tang Chun Man from Hong Kong. Though it was a great effort by the Indian pair, they fell short of making it to the next round.
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