Two-time World Championship bronze medallist P.V. Sindhu made a winning return to the circuit when she easily beat Uzbekistan’s Anait Khurshudyan to progress to the women’s singles third round at the $200,000 Badminton Asia Championships on Wednesday.
The eighth seeded Sindhu has been out of action since January due to a foot injury. Playing her first match in three months, Sindhu romped past Anait 21-6, 21-5 in only 16 minutes in the second round at the Wuhan Sports Center Gymnasium.
The World No.12, who got a first round bye, will next take on Macau’s Teng Iok U, whom she will be playing for the first time.
Later, reigning Commonwealth Games champion Parupalli Kashyap also entered the third round of men’s singles. The 28-year-old had to endure a marathon one-hour 53-minute battle against Chinese Taipei’s Jen Hao Hsu before he came out on top 15-21, 21-18, 21-19.
Kashyap will next play Chinese seventh seed Zhengming Wang against whom the Hyderabadi has a 1-3 record.
Meanwhile in men’s doubles, the pair of Manu Attri and B. Sumeeth Reddy got a walkover from Afghan combine Ahmad Shekib Iqbal and Ahmad Faheem Yari to enter the third round where they will face a tough test against Chinese third seeds Xiaolong Liu and Zihan Qiu.
In the same category, it was bad news for Indian shuttlers as Japanese fourth seeds Hiroyuki Endo and Kenichi Hayakawa took care of Akshay Dewalkar and Pranaav Chopra in the second round, winning 21-15, 21-17 in 36 minutes.
