Mixed day for Indian shuttlers at Indonesia Open

Sindhu, Saina advance to 2nd round; Reddy-Ponnappa out

World No 3 PV Sindhu made light work of Pornpawee Chochuwong, beating the Thail in two games to advance to the 2nd round of the Indonesia Open Superseries Premier tournament on Tuesday.

Sindhu won the match 21-12, 21-19 and took just 33 minutes to finish the job.

The 21-year-old will next face USA’s Beiwen Zhang.

Among other Indians, three-time champion Saina Nehwal edged out Thailand's Ratchanok Intanon in a thrilling opening round to make a rousing start to her campaign in Jakarta.

Saina, who has slipped out of the World top-10 for the first time in seven years, rallied her way to a 17-21, 21-18, 21-12 win over the eighth seeded Thai player.

Saina, who had a 7-5 head-to-head record against former World Champion Ratchanok, will face another Thai player Nitchaon Jindapol in the next round and is likely to clash with World No. 1 Tai Tzu Ying in the quarters.

In the mixed doubles, B Sumeeth Reddy and Ashwini Ponnappa suffered a 12-21, 9-21 loss to Indonesian combo of Irfan Fadhilah and Weni Anggraini to crash out of the tournament.

Saina made a good start to the match, leading 10-4 at one stage but blew the advantage after the break as Ratchanok clawed back at 14-14 and then marched ahead.

In the second game, Saina opened up a 12-7 lead and despite the Thai girl levelling scores at 16-16, the Indian surged ahead to bounce back.

In the decider, Saina dished out a dominating game as she led right from the start (8-2) and didn't allow Ratchanok to make a comeback.