Swiss Open: Kidambi Srikanth, PV Sindhu, Ajay Jayaram through to quarters; Saina Nehwal ousted

Basel: Indian shuttlers PV Sindhu, Kidambi Srikanth and Ajay Jayaram had a good day in office as they advanced to the quarter-finals of the singles competition at the Swiss Open Super 300 badminton tournament on Thursday. Indian mixed doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Ashwini Ponnappa also progressed to the quarter-finals, continuing their recent good run in international badminton. World champion PV Sindhu hardly broke any sweat, beating USA’s Iris Wang 21-13 21-14 in the women’s singles competition, while former world no 1 Srikanth notched up a 21-10, 14-21, 21-14 victory over World No 50 Thomas Rouxel of France and Jayaram eked out a hard-fought 21-18, 17-21, 21-13 against third-seeded Dane Rasmus Gemke in their respective men’s singles second-round matches. Satwik and Ashwini, who reached the semi-finals at Toyota Thailand Open Super 1000 in January, defeated the Indonesian combination of Rinov Rivaldy and Pitha Haningtyas Mentari 21-18, 21-16 in a mixed doubles second-round match. While second seed Sindhu meets fifth-seeded Thai Busanan Ongbamrungphan next, while fourth seed Srikanth, who had won the title in 2015, will face sixth-seeded Thai Kantaphon Wangcharoen and Jayaram will be up against another Thai Kunlavut Vitidsarn, seeded eighth, in the last-eight stage. Satwik and Ashwini will meet the winner of the match between fifth-seeded Malaysians Tan Kian Meng and Lai Pei Jing and Germany’s Jones Ralfy Jansen and Kilasu Ostermeyer. However, Sourabh Verma lost 17-21, 14-21 to eighth-seeded Thai Kunlavut Vitidsarn to crash out of the men’s singles event. Earlier, two-time former champion Saina Nehwal bowed out of the tournament after a hard-fought first-round loss in the women’s singles opening round on Wednesday night. The London Olympic bronze-medallist battled for 58 minutes before going down 16-21, 21-17, 21-23 to Phittayaporn Chaiwan of Thailand. Saina’s husband and fellow shuttler Parupalli Kashyap too went down 15-21, 10-21 to Spain’s Pablo Abian, while young Lakshya Sen lost 16-21, 12-21 to Victor Svendsen in the men’s singles first round. Men’s doubles pair of MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila lost 16-21, 18-21 to seventh seeds Vladimir Ivanov and Ivan Sozonov of Russia.