Gold Coast : India blanked Scotland 5-0 to enter the quarterfinals of the badminton mixed team event, displaying tremendous form en route to their third successive clean sweep at the Commonwealth Games.
India topped Group A as the likes of Saina Nehwal and Kidambi Srikanth led the country’s dominance at the Carrara Sports and Leisure Centre.
London Olympics bronze medallist Saina Nehwal gave India a 1-0 lead after easily defeating Julie Macpherson 21-14, 21-12 in the women’s singles match before World No.2 Kidambi Srikanth outclassed Kieran Merrilees 21-18, 21-2 in men’s singles to power India to a 2-0 lead.
The duo of N Sikki Reddy and Ashwini Ponnappa led India’s charge in women’s doubles before Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty helped India win in men’s doubles. The pairing of Pranaav Chopra and Reddy pulled off a win in the mixed doubles category to complete yet another thumping win for the Indian badminton team.
Reddy fails but two others qualify
Putting up a dismal show, world cup medallist gymnast Aruna Reddy failed to qualify for the final round but a ‘lucky’ Pranati Nayak made the cut in vault event of the women’s artistic gymnastics in the Commonwealth Games.
Pranati Das also qualified for final of all round events. Nayak finished eighth in the vault qualification round while Das was 18th in the all round qualifying event. At the end of the four sub division competitions in vault, Nayak actually finished ninth but she made it to the final round of eight gymnasts as the top-three spots were occupied by Canadians. Under rules, only two from a country can qualify for the final round.