After proving the best among the rest from a depleted field in the National championship, Sayali Gokhale has found it tough to prove worthy of the honour. Though she won the Spanish Open, Sayali remained a very much beatable rival when pitted against homebred talents.
On Wednesday, Sayali became the first casualty in the $50,000 Jaypee Cup Syed Modi International Grand Prix badminton tournament after qualifier P. V. Sindhu handed out a crushing straight-game defeat in just 27 minutes.
An electricity failure believed to be caused due to a burnt cable at the Uttar Pradesh Badminton Academy hall upset the schedule and the planned inauguration ceremony but Sindhu’s 21-17, 21-10 conquest of the eighth seed Sayali stood out big and bright.
The day saw almost all results follow the rankings but Sindhu turned the tide during the 27-minute mismatch. A visibly sluggish Sayali could only watch as many as five winners from an inspired Sindhu set the tone of the match. Sindhu led 9-4 and never trailed thereafter. In the second game, Sindhu’s superior net-play made the difference. The Hyderabad girl won five straight points to lead 18-9 to effectively end Sayali resistance.
The results (Indians unless stated, prefix denotes seeding):
Men singles: Second round : 8-Guru Sai Dutt bt K. Ajay Kumar 21-8, 21-6; Ajay Jayaram bt Marcel Reuter (Ger) 21-16, 21-13; 5-Hayom Rumbaka Dyonisius (Indonesia) bt B. Kiran Kumar 21-9, 21-14; Dieter Domke (Germany) bt Manish Rawat 21-18, 21-18; 4- P. Kashyap bt K. Nandgopal 21-10, 21-16; B. Sai Praneet bt Tanvir Gill 21-15, 21-17; Kwong Beng Chan (Malaysia) bt Mayank Behal 21-12, 21-12; 2-Arvind Bhat bt Manish Gupta 21-4, 21-13.
First round : Srujan Nandaluri bt Rajiv Bajaj 21-11, 21-7; Attri Manu bt Oscar Bansal 21-12, 13-21, 21-19; Adnan Fauzi (Indonesia) bt Bishan Aman Singh 21-6, 21-5; 6-Anup Sridhar bt Arun Nandaluri 21-7, 21-15;
Prakash Jolly bt Himanshu Kharbhanda 21-14, 21-19; Ratnajit Tamang (Nepal) bt Venkatesh Prasad 21-16, 11-21, 21-16; Eshan Naqvi bt Ali Shahhosseini (Iran) 21-12, 21-16; Andre Kurniawan Tedjono (Indonesia) bt B Sumeeth Reddy 21-13, 21-10; Sourabh Verma bt Hemant Duggal 21-13, 21-16; Aditya Prakash bt Nishant Sinha 21-10, 21-12; Latif Mohamad Arif Abdul (Malaysia) bt Venkat Gaurav 21-16, 21-9; Datt bt Mohit Kamat 21-11, 21-16; K Ajay Kumar bt P Vinay Kumar Reddy 20-22, 21-19, 21-19; Marcel Reuter (Germany) bt Abhimanyu Singh 21-11, 21-16; Ajay Jayaram bt Bikash Shrestha 21-5, 21-11; Nuwan Hettiarachchi (Sri Lanka) bt Nihar Tilekar 21-17, 21-13; Mohammadreza Kheradmandi (Iran) bt Pawan Mallik 21-15, 21-14; B. Kirankumar bt Ajay Dayal 21-14, 22-20; 5-Hayom Rumbaka Dyonisius (Indonesia) bt K Anil Kumar 21-8, 21-9; Manish Rawat bt Pankaj Chand (Nepal) 21-10, 21-7; Dieter Domke (Germany) bt Anirbhan Chetia 21-9, 21-6; K Nandagopal bt Abhinav Prakash 21-17, 21-10; 4-P Kashyap bt Ravinder Singh 21-8, 21-13; Tanvir Gill bt Sajan Krishna Tamrakar 21-11, 21-6; B Sai Praneet bt H S Prannoy 21-17, 21-18; Nikhil Kanetkar bt Anshuman Hazarika 21-14, 21-13; Kwong Beng Chan (Malaysia) bt T Dinesh 21-17, 21-11; Mayank Behal bt Gauranshu Chopra 21-14, 21-15.
Women singles: First round : Chitralekha bt Thilni Jayasinghe (Sri) 21-10, 21-19; 5- Fransiska Ratnasari (Ina) bt Anita Ohlan 20-22, 21-13, 21-19; Misaki Matsutomo (Jpn) bt P. C. Thulasi 13-21, 21-16, 21-15; 3-Maja Tvrdy (Slo) bt Sampada Sahastrabudhe 21-15, 22-24, 21-16; 6-Jeanine Cicognini (Sui) bt Gayatri Vartak 22-20, 17-21, 21-11; Parssa Naqvi bt Sabina Panthi (Nepal) 21-12, 21-5; Yu Hirayama (Jpn) bt Arundati Patawane 21-0, 21-9; 7-Trupti Murgunde bt Sara Naqvi 21-9, 21-15; Neha Pandit bt Nansala Tamang (Nepal) 21-9, 21-8; 4-Aditi Mutatkar bt Saili Rane 21-8, 21-7; Mohita Sahdev bt Rachita Sahdev 21-11, 21-10; P. V. Sindhu bt 8-Sayali Gokhale 21-17, 21-10; Dhanya Nair bt Poonam Gurung (Nep) 21-11, 21-10.
