Saina Nehwal enters into 2nd round of Hong Kong Open

Saina Nehwal

Hong Kong: Leading women shuttler Saina Nehwal hardly broke a sweat to advance to the pre-quarterfinals of the USD 350,000 Hong Kong Super Series in Kowloon here yesterday.


Saina Nehwal

In the women's singles, Saina, who also bagged the China Open title, needed just 27 minute to beat unseeded Jamie Subandhi of United States 21-17 21-11 in her campaign opener. Jamie Subandhi is ranked World No.52.

In the second round, Olympic bronze medallist Saina will face the winner between US' Beiwan Zhang and Russian Ksenia Polikarpova.

However, the Indian women's and men's doubles pairs failed to clear the first round hurdles.

While the men's pair of Manu Attri and B. Sumeeth Reddy lost 15-21, 17-21 in 31 minutes to World No.3 Indonesian pair of Hendra Setiawan and Mohammad Ahsan, the women's 2011 World Championships bronze medallists Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa went down 21-16, 14-21, 21-23 to Malaysian pair of Lim Loon Yin and Lee Yean Meng.

In the men's singles competitions, Ajay Jayaram and R.M.V Gurusaidutt lost their matches.

While Jayaram was thrashed 13-21, 7-21 by reigning world champion Chen Long, Gurusaidutt lost 15-21, 21-15, 20-22 to Japan's Sho Sasaki.