Star Indian shuttler Saina Nehwal stormed into the quarter-finals of the Denmark Open, defeating second seed Akane Yamaguchi in the second round match here on Thursday.
Saina Nehwal, Kidambi Srikanth, Tai Tzu Ying. Agencies
In a match which lasted 36 minutes, the Hyderabadi shuttler outplayed Japanese shuttler Yamaguchi 21-15, 21-17 in straight games.
Right from the start, Saina seemed positive and played aggressively. Her swift court movements and powerful smashes helped her to advance in the meet.
Saina will now take on former world champion Nozomi Okuhara in the quarters.
In other matches, Sameer Verma advanced, defeating Jonatan Christie of Indonesia in a 23-21, 6-21, 22-20 marathon match of more than an hour.
In the women's doubles category, Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy also made it to the next round as they edged past Lee So Hee and Shin Seung Chan of South Korea. The Indian duo defeated their opponent 18-21, 22-20, 21-18 in an hour's match.
Kidambi Srikanth defeated the legendary Lin Dan for the second time in his career to set up an all-Indian quarterfinal against Sameer Verma at the Denmark Open here.
World number six Srikanth bounced back to beat the world number 14 from China 18-21, 21-17, 21-16 in the second round clash played on Thursday night.
Dan, a two-time Olympic gold medallist and five-time world champion, is not the player he used to be but is still a force to reckon with. It was a fifth meeting between Srikanth and Dan and the Chinese great won the last time they played, in the quarterfinals of the 2016 Rio Olympics.
Srikanth had famously scored his maiden win over Dan to win the 2014 China Open.
After a tough match against the Chinese, Srikanth will have to play fellow Indian Verma in the quarterfinals to be held later on Friday.
