Kuala Lumpur:
India's Kidambi Srikanth made it to the men's singles quarterfinal but an erratic P V Sindhu went down in straight games in women's singles competition at the USD 750,000 Malaysia Open here Thursday. Eighth-seeded Srikanth, who had reached the finals of a BWF World Tour event after 17 months at the India Open last week, defeated Thailand's Khosit Phetpradab 21-11 21-15 in little over half an hour to set up a meeting with Olympic champion and fourth seed Chen Long of China.
The 26-year-old is now the lone Indian survivor in the BWF World Tour Super 750 tournament. Fifth seed Sindhu blew a 13-10 advantage in the opening game to go down rather meekly 18-21 7-21 to world No 10 Sung Ji Hyun for her third straight defeat to the Korean. The Indian had to the Korean in the first round of All England Championship and 2018 Hong Kong Open. Mixed doubles pair of Pranaav Jerry Chopra and N Sikki Reddy lost 21-15 17-21 13-21 to a local combination of Tan Kian Meng and Lai Pei Jing of Malaysia India to bow out.
Srikanth opened up a 6-2 lead early on and then jumped to a 14-6 advantage. The Indian continued to dominate the proceedings to pocket the opening game. Nothing changed in the second with Srikanth again marching ahead early and holding his fort to comfortably shut out the match. In the women's singles match, after some good rallies, Sindhu enjoyed a three-point lead at 8-5 but Sung Ji Hyun drew level with a cross-court smash.
The Indian again managed to hold an 11-9 lead after the Korean went wide. After the interval, Sung Ji erased the deficit and grabbed a 16-14 lead after Sindhu miscued two shots. A backhand aimed at the body helped Sung Ji to move up to 19-16. Sindhu then misjudged the shuttle twice at the backline to hand over the opening game to her rival.
Sung Ji raced to a 5-0 lead early on before moving to 10-5. A precise down-the-line return helped her to grab an 11-6 advantage at the break. It was one-way traffic after the breather as the Korean took 10 of the next 11 points as Sindhu made some uncharacteristic mistakes. Eventually, two unforced errors from the Indian helped Sung Ji seal the quarterfinals spot.
