Saina Nehwal began her All England Badminton Championship campaign with a comfortable win over Scotland's Kirsty Gilmour; meanwhile Sindhu, Kashyap and Srikanth lose in opening round
Birmingham: Saina Nehwal began her All England Badminton Championship campaign with a comfortable win over Scotland's Kirsty Gilmour here Wednesday.
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World No. 10, Sindhu too found the going tough and her debut at the All England was spoilt by Sun Yu of China in another women's singles match. Sindhu, who held a 2-1 record against Sun before the match, suffered a 16-21 15-21 loss in a 47-minute match at the National Indoor Arena here.
Even India's top male players, Parupalli Kashyap and Kidambi Srikanth, lost their opening round matches.
World No.7 Saina sailed past 20th ranked Gilmour 21-15, 21-6 in 32 minutes at the National Indoor Arena.
Saina Nehwal. Pic/ AFP
The Hyderabadi next faces American qualifier Beiwen Zhang, who got a walkover from Germany's World No.11 Juliane Schenk.
Sindhu, however, had a difficult time against Sun as she lagged behind 5-9 early on and though the Indian clawed back at 12-12 and then at 15-15, the Chinese reeled off five points on the trot to win the opening game.
In the second game too, Sun moved to 4-2 initially and then extended the lead to 11-7. Sindhu narrowed down the gap to 12-13 but the Chinese was successful in staving off the challenge from the 18-year-old Indian in the end.
World No.19 Kashyap endured a tough loss against fifth ranked Kenichi Tago of Japan. Tago pipped the Indian 14-21, 21-19, 21-17 in a 75 minute battle.
World No.21 Srikanth also fell flat, losing 11-21, 15-21 to 15th-ranked Kento Memota of Japan.
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