World Tour Finals: Sindhu, Srikanth make winning start

P V Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth registered straight-game victories in their opening singles matches at the season-ending BWF World Tour Finals, in Bali, on Wednesday.

Sindhu, a two-time Olympic medallist, saw off Denmark's Line Christophersen 21-14, 21-16 in a lop-sided Group A contest after former world No. 1 Srikanth beat France's Toma Junior Popov 21-14, 21-16, in 42 minutes in his opening match of Group B.

Later in the evening, young Lakshya Sen also won his first match of Group A after World No. 2 Kento Momota of Japan retired injured with the score 1-1 in the first game.

Sindhu, the reigning World champion and only Indian to win the year-ending tournament in 2018, will meet Germany's Yvonne Li next.

Srikanth, who had reached the knockout stage of the 2014 edition, will next face Thailand's three-time junior World champion Kunlavut Vitidsarn.

The women's doubles pair of Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy, however, lost 14-21, 18-21 to the second-seeded Japanese combination of Nami Matsuyama and Chiharu Shida in their opening Group B match.

Also starting with a loss was the men's doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, beaten 16-21, 5-21 by the Danish combination of Kim Astrup and Anders Rasmussen in Group A.

Sindhu looked in good control as she opened up a 5-2 lead and though Line made it 7-6, the Indian quickly reeled off 10 straight points to march to 16-8 and seal the opening game comfortably.

After the change of sides, Line put up a slightly better show as she led briefly at 4-2 before Sindhu grabbed a slender 11-10 advantage at the interval. On resumption, Sindhu zoomed to 17-13, and soon, shut the door on her opponent.

Srikanth also displayed a compact game. He was alert and agile on the court and found points with his attacks against the world No 33 Frenchman.

The opening game was a tight affair in the initial part with the duo fighting tooth and nail.

Srikanth managed to eke out a slender 11-9 lead at the break and then came out with five straight points to move ahead to 16-10 and soon closed out the game.

In the second game, Srikanth trailed 1-4 but soon recovered to grab a two-point advantage at the interval.

Just like the first game, he made his way to a healthy 14-9 lead before moving to 19-14. A long shot from his opponent gave Srikanth four match-points and he sealed it with some superb net play.