Barcelona Spain Masters: Saina Nehwal beats Germany's Yvonne Li to enter second round; HS Prannoy ousted

Barcelona: India’s Olympic bronze medallist shuttler Saina Nehwal advanced to the women’s singles pre-quarterfinals of the USD 170,000 Barcelona Spain Masters with a 21-16 21-14 win over Germany’s Yvonne Li on Wednesday. Sania took just 35 minutes to beat her opponent in the first round match. [caption id=“attachment_5048031” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Indian badminton ace Saina Nehwal. AFP[/caption] In men’s singles, Kidambi Srikanth and Ajay Jayaram sailed into the pre-quarterfinals with easy wins over their respective opponents. While Jayaram beat Christo Popov of France 21-14 21-12 in a 30 minute first round match, third seeded Srikanth defeated compatriot Subhankar Dey 23-21 21-18 in a hard-fought 41-minute contest. Srikanth and Jayaram run into each other in the pre-quarterfinals on Thursday. Pranaav Jerry Chopra and Sikki N Reddy also won their mixed doubles first round match against Denmark’s Mathias Christiansen and Alexandra Boje 10-21 21-16 21-17. However, H S Prannoy lost to Malaysian Daren Liew 18-21 15-21 to bow out of the tournament. Parupalli Kashyap also bowed out of the tournament after retiring midway in the third game against Ygor Coelho of Brazil. The Indian was training 12-14 then after two rivals have won a game each. Saina is looking to keep her Tokyo Olympic hopes alive after an inconsistent outing in 2019 and she also didn’t enjoy a good start this year. She has crossed the first round in only one of the three events in 2020.