Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, Jan 11: Double Olympic medalist PV Sindhu struggled when she returned to action after a long injury lay-off, but in-form HS On Wednesday, Prannoy extended his incredible run to advance to the second round of the Malaysia Open Super 1000 badminton competition.
The sixth-seeded Sindhu fell in 59 minutes to Rio Olympics champion Carolina Marin of Spain after suffering a stress fracture on her left ankle while en route to the gold at the Commonwealth Games in August.
Earlier, in a tense opening-round match that lasted little over an hour, world No. 8 Prannoy defeated 10th-ranked Lakshya Sen 22-24, 21-12, 21-18, living up to his new status as India’s top-ranked men’s singles player.
The 30-year-old from Kerala will then compete against Chico Aura Dwi Wardoyo of Indonesia.
Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty beat Choi Sol Gyu and Kim Won Ho of Korea 21-16, 21-13 to qualify to the pre-quarterfinals as well.
The world’s No. 5 team will compete against Muhammad Shohibul Fikri and Bagas Maulana of Indonesia.
Malvika Bansod, however, was unable to overcome the first obstacle and was defeated by Korean An Se Young, the second seed, 9-21, 13-21.
In the women’s doubles match, Thailand’s Supissara Paewsampran and Puttita Supajirakul defeated Ashwini Bhat and Shikha Gautam 10-21, 12-21.
Against Marin, who had a difficult recent history after tearing her ACL in both of her knees, Sindhu had a 5-9 head-to-head record.
