Indian shuttlers PV Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth moved to the singles quarterfinals of the Madrid Spain Masters badminton tournament with straight game wins on Thursday.
Two-time Olympic medallist, Sindhu dispatched Putri Kusuma Wardani of Indonasia 21-16, 21-14 in a little over half an hour to enter her first quarterfinal in 2023.
World no. 21 Srikanth, on the other hand, pulled off a 21-15, 21-12 second-round win over compatriot B Sai Praneeth. Second seed Sindhu has been struggling for form this season since returning to action following a long injury lay off. It is the first time in 2023 that the 27-year-old former world champion has crossed the second round.
Sindhu, who has dropped out of the top 10 for the first time since November 2016, will take on 25-year-old Danish Mia Blichfeldt in the last eight stage of the Super 300 tournament.
While World no. 21 Srikanth, seeded fifth, has a tough contest ahead of him as the former world No. 1 is pitted against top seed Kenta Nishimoto of Japan in the quarterfinals.
Nishimoto was handed a walkover by France’s Arnaud Merkle in their second-round contest.
Kiran George, Priyanshu Rajawat and Sameer Verma crashed out of the men’s singles event after suffering second-round defeats.
While George went down to Denmark’s Magnus Johannesen 17-21, 12-21 in 31 minutes, Rajawat was outplayed 14-21, 15-21 by eighth seed Toma Junior Popov of France. Verma suffered 15-21, 14-21 defeat against second-seeded Japanese Kanta Tsuneyama.
In women’s singles, Ashmita Chaliha went down 15-21, 15-21 to Singapore’s Yeo Jia Min while Aakarshi Kashyap lost 13-21, 8-21 to Japan’s Natsuki Nidaira. Malvika Bansod gave walkover to top seed and home favourite Carolina Marin.
Men’s doubles pair of MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila lost 16-21, 20-22 to Japan’s Shuntaro Mezaki and Haruya Nishida while women’s doubles duo of N. Sikki Reddy and Arathi Sara Sunil went down 12-21, 13-21 to Japan’s Rui Hirokami and Yuna Kato.
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