Saina Nehwal in Round 2 of China Open badminton, faces Akane Yamuguchi next
November 15, 2017
Saina Nehwal, who recently won the National Badminton Championships beating rival PV Sindhu in the final, won her women’s singles opener to enter the $700,000 China Open Superseries Premier Round 2 with a straight games victory in Fuzhou on Wednesday.
World No.11 Saina Nehwal beat Beiwen Zhang 21-12, 21-13 in half an hour in her third win over the American in as many meetings.
Saina Nehwal, who won the tournament in 2014 and reached the women’s singles final the next year, will next take on Japanese fifth seed Akane Yamaguchi, in the next round.
The World No.4 has a 3-1 advantage over the Hyderabadi in career meetings and has beaten Saina the three times the two faced each other this year.
However, Sourabh Verma faced a dead end in his men’s singles opener as he went down 14-21, 21-15, 11-21 in 55 minutes to Frenchman Brice Leverdez.
Earlier in the day, the campaign for Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty got over in the opener as Chinese fifth seeds Liu Cheng and Zhang Nan won 21-13, 21-13 in 36 minutes.
The challenge of Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy also came to an end in women’s doubles as Ha Na Baek and Chae Yoo Jung of South Korea won 21-14, 21-15 in 39 minutes.
