BWF World Championships: Saina Nehwal off to winning start; Jolly-Gopichand pair advances

Saina Nehwal got her BWF World Championships campaign off to a victorious start with a straight-games win over Hong Kong’s Cheung Ngan Yi in Tokyo on Tuesday. Nehwal, who won silver in the 2015 Championships in Jakarta followed by a bronze in Glasgow two years later and will hope to end her wait for a gold this year, defeated Ngan Yi 21-19, 21-9 in a match that lasted a little over half-an-hour, comfortably advancing to the second round in the process. The Indian will next be seen in action in the third round as her second-round opponent, Japanese shuttler and sixth seed Nozomi Okuhara, has withdrawn from the tournament. She will face the winner of the second-round clash between 12th seed Busanan Ongbamrungphan and Yvonne Li.

UPDATE: @NSaina moves into the pre-quarters as 🇯🇵's Nozomi Okuhara has withdrawn from #BWFWorldChampionships2022.#BWFWorldChampionships #Tokyo2022 #IndiaontheRise#Badminton

— BAI Media (@BAI_Media) August 23, 2022

Nehwal is currently the only Indian left in the women’s singles event as Malvika Bansod crashed out in the first round on the opening day following a loss to Line Christophersen, while ace shuttler PV Sindhu had earlier opted out of the Championships due to fitness issues. Besides Nehwal, the pair of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand got off to a winning start in their women’s doubles campaign with a comfortable 21-11, 21-13 victory over the Malaysian pair of Low Yeen Yuan and Valeree Siow in a match lasting 31 minutes. The opening day of the World Championships witnessed Lakshya Sen advance to the second round of the men’s singles event along with HS Prannoy and Kidambi Srikanth — all of them registering straight-game wins though Srikanth’s victory was a narrow one. B Sai Praneeth, however, was knocked out after losing to Chinese Taipei’s Chou Tien Chen 15-21, 21-15, 15-21. In the women’s doubles matches on Monday, Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy defeated the Maldivian pair of Aminath Nabeeha Abdul Razzaq and Fathimath Nabaaha Abdul Razzaq 21-7, 21-9, while in Mixed Doubles, B Sumeeth Reddy and Manu Attri lost to the Japanese pair of Hiroki Okamura and Masayuki Onodera 11-21, 19-21, 15-21. Read all the Latest News ****, Trending News ****, Cricket News ****, Bollywood News ****, India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook****, Twitter and Instagram