Malaysia Open 2018: PV Sindhu advances to second round; B Sai Praneeth goes down in opener

Kuala Lumpur: Olympic silver-medallist PV Sindhu made a positive start, staving off a stiff challenge from Japan’s Aya Ohori in the women’s singles opening round at the US $700,000 Malaysia Open World Tour super 750 tournament, on Wednesday. [caption id=“attachment_4339427” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of PV Sindhu. AFP[/caption] Sindhu, who had skipped the Uber Cup Finals to regain full fitness after claiming a silver at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, took some time to get into the groove before she edged out World No 14 Ohori 26-24, 21-15 in the opening round match. The third-seeded Indian will face the winner of the match between Malaysia’s Ying Ying Lee and Chinese Taipei’s Chiang Ying Li next. However, it was curtains for Singapore Open champion B Sai Praneeth as he went down 12-21, 7-21 to Wang Tzu Wei of Chinese Taipei in a men’s singles contest. Sindhu’s slender 8-6 lead vaporised when Ohori had a 12-10 and 15-13 advantage at one stage. But Sindhu managed to turn the tables, reaching 19-17. The Japanese came back to grab game points at 20-19 but the Indian saved one. However, she failed to convert three game points herself as Ohori again held a 24-23 lead. In the end, Sindhu held her nerves to close out the opening game. In the second game, Sindhu eked out a slender 8-6 lead at one stage and despite a fightback by Ohori, she managed to break free at 14-14 to comfortably seal the contest. Kidambi Srikanth and men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty will be in action later in the day.