The Hindu : Sport : Saina Nehwal enters pre-quarterfinals

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Thursday, Jun 25, 2009
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Saina Nehwal enters pre-quarterfinals

Johor Bahru: Fresh from her Indonesian Open Super Series win, India’s Saina Nehwal stormed into the pre-quarterfinals of the Malaysian Open Grand Prix Gold badminton tournament with a straight-game victory over Porntip Buranaprasertsuk of Thailand here on Wednesday.

Second seed Saina needed less than half an hour to send Buranaprasertsuk packing with a 21-18, 22-20 victory in her opening round match to set up a clash with another Thai Ratchanok Intanon in the round of 16.

Arvind, Ajay advance

Arvind Bhat and Ajay Jayaram also advanced into the men’s pre-quarterfinals.

However, it was curtains for compatriots Chetan Anand, Anup Sridhar, P. Kashyap, Anand Pawar in men’s singles and Aditi Mutatkar in the women’s singles.

Ninth seed Arvind had to toil hard for his 21-16, 16-21, 21-16 first round win over Sune Gavnholt of Denmark.

The lanky Indian then defeated Yongzhao Ashton Chen of Singapore 21-18, 17-21, 21-15 in the second round to set up a pre-quarterfinals clash with Long Chen of China.

Promising young shuttler Ajay beat Malaysian Chong Chieh 21-16, 21-8 in the first round and then got the better of Iskandar Zulkarnain Zainuddin of Malaysia 21-13, 24-22 in 30 minutes to set up a last 16 clash with Yun Hu of Hong Kong.

The results (Indians only):

Men: Second round: Arvind Bhat bt Yongzhao Ashton Chen (Sin) 21-18, 17-21, 21-15; Ajay Jayaram bt Iskandar Zulkarnain Zainuddin (Mal) 21-13, 24-22; Chun Seang Tan (Mal) bt P. Kashyap 22-20, 21-11.

First round: Arvind bt Sune Gavnholt (Den) 21-16, 16-21, 21-16; Ajay bt Chong Chieh (Mal) 21-16, 21-8; Chetan Anand lost to Iskandar Zulkarnain Zainuddin 16-21, 21-18, 17-21; Anand Pawar lost toWei Feng Chong (Mal) 14-21, 21-11, 15-21; Anup Sridhar lost to Koichi Saeki (Jpn) 21-17, 11-21, 17-21; P. Kashyap bt Kazuteru Kozai (Jpn) 21-13, 14-21, 21-11.

Women: First round: Saina Nehwal bt Porntip Buranaprasertsuk (Tha) 21-18, 22-20; Mingtian Fu (Sin) bt Aditi Mutatkar 21-11, 11-4, retd. — PTI

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