Tokyo Olympics 2020: PV Sindhu beats Cheung Ngan Yi to enter round of 16; Sai Praneeth ends campaign with a loss

Tokyo: Reigning world champion P V Sindhu advanced to the pre-quarterfinals of women’s singles badminton event but it was curtains for men’s singles player B Sai Praneeth at the Tokyo Olympics here on Wednesday. Sindhu, who had claimed a silver medal in the last edition in Rio, prevailed over world No. 34 Hong Kong’s NY Cheung 21-9 21-16 in a 35-minute match to top Group J. However, 13th seed Praneeth failed to bring his ‘A’ game to the table once again, going down 14-21 14-21 to Mark Caljouw of Netherlands in 40 minutes for his second defeat in Group D. Caljow, with this win, topped the group to qualify for the knockout stage. Only the group toppers advance to the knockout stage. For Sindhu, it was her sixth win over Cheung in as many meetings. “I found my rhythm from the second game on and I finished it off. It was a fast game and I made a couple of unforced errors. I changed my tactics and got things under control. This type of test is important before a big match,” the 26-year-old Indian said after the match. World No. 7 Sindhu will meet Denmark’s world number 12 Mia Blichfeldt, who topped Group I. Sindhu has a 4-1 head-to-head record against Blichfeldt, whose only win against the Indian was at the Yonex Thailand Open earlier this year. “It’s not going to be an easy game. I need to recover well and come back stronger. I’ve played her a couple of times, every point is going to be important. She’s an aggressive player so I need to be aggressive as well,” Sindhu said. The shuttler from Hyderabad, seeded sixth, had defeated Ksenia Polikarpova of Israel in her opening match. [caption id=“attachment_9844221” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Sai Praneeth of India competes against Netherland’s Mark Caljown during men’s singles match. AP[/caption] Sindhu used her repertoire of strokes, and her ability to vary the pace troubled the Hong Kong player. Sindhu made her opponent run around the court and will then come up with perfect placements to win points. Cheung got a few points with her deceptive cross court returns but she committed many unforced errors to have any chance of putting pressure on the Indian in the first game. Sindhu led 6-2 early on before galloping to 10-3. She committed a rare error at 10-3 before entering the interval at 11-5. The Indian didn’t have any trouble after resumption as she zoomed to 20-9 and pocketed the opening game when Cheung netted a return. Cheung was looking to script a turnaround in the second game as she extended the rallies and with Sindhu too struggling to control the shuttle, the duo moved to 6-6 and 8-8. Sindhu also made judgement errors before sending the shuttle wide again to hand over a slender one point advantage to her opponent. Cheung tried to put pressure on Sindhu but the Indian wriggled out with her better strokeplay which included a few straight down the line smashes. Sindhu moved to 19-14 before grabbing six match points but she missed the lines again and netted a shot to squander two match points before sealing it with a smash. On Tuesday, Indian shuttlers Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy suffered a heartbreak after they failed to qualify for the men’s doubles quarterfinals at the Tokyo Olympics despite winning two matches in their group. The Indian duo had emerged victorious against the England pair of Ben Lane and Sean Vendy in their final Group A match but still missed out on qualifying for the quarterfinals after the three pairs ended with same points and games won were considered to identify the qualifiers.