PV Sindhu and the women’s doubles pair of Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy advanced to the second round of Swiss Open 2021 on Wednesday with a comfortable wins. Sindhu was up against Turkish Neslihan Yigit and registered an easy 21-16, 21-19 win in 42 minutes. Ashwini-Sikki, on the other hand, got a 21-5, 21-19 win over the German pair of Annabella Jaeger and Stine Kuspert in just 33 minutes.
Earlier, Ajay Jayaram also got a straight games win over Thailand’s Sitthikom Thammasin. Jayaram beat Thammasin 21-12, 21-13 in only 35 minutes. Sindhu and Ashwini-Sikki joined the likes of Kidambi Srikanth, Sourabh Verma, Jayaram, Ashwini-Satwik and Satwik-Chirag in Round 2.
Lakshya Sen was unable to show much in her 16-21, 12-21 loss to Denmark’s Victor Svendsen. Svendsen got an easy win over Lakshya in just 38 minutes.
The other men’s doubles pair of MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila also lost 16-21, 18-21 to seventh seeds Vladimir Ivanov-Ivan Sozonov in 36 minutes.
Sindhu was never really threatened by her opposition on Wednesday even though the Turkish put all her might into giving Sindhu a good competition. Sindhu remained in control of the proceedings right from the start but she was frustrated by Yigit a few times.
On paper, Sindhu should have blown away the Turkish but her resilience and ability to bring her A game defensively meant the Indian had to work hard to get the points.
However, Yigit was surely no match to Sindhu’s ability and the Indian cruised to victory.
Earlier in the day, Indian men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty advanced to the second round with a tricky three-game win over Scottish pair Christopher Grimle-Matthew Grimle. The second seeds won 21-18, 19-21, 21-16 in an hour and nine minutes. Along with Satwik-Chirag, Sourabh Verma also advanced to the second round while HS Prannoy was knocked out.
Sourabh defeated Swiss Christian Kirchmayr 21-19, 21-18 in 43 minutes. He will be up against eighth seed and junior world champion Kunlavut Vitidsarn of Thailand. Prannoy bowed out of the tournament after losing his first round match to Netherlands’ Mark Caljouw 19-21, 21-9, 17-21 in an hour and two minutes.
Lakshya, Prannoy, Sameer Verma and the mixed doubles pair of Pranaav Jerry Chopra and N Sikki Reddy were in the list of the Indians eliminated.
On Tuesday, Ashwini Ponnappa-Satwik pulled off a huge upset against Indonesian second seeds Hafiz Faizal and Gloria Emanuelle Widjaja as they registered a 38-minute 21-18, 21-10 to advance to the second round of the tournament.
Later in the day, Saina Nehwal, Lakshya Sen, Parupalli Kashyap and Sai Praneeth.