Bali (Indonesia), November 24: India's double Olympic medallist PV Sindhu registered a come-from-behind win against Aya Ohori to reach the second round of the Indonesia Open Super 1000 event in Bali on Wednesday (November 24).
After dropping the first game, Sindhu, the reigning world champion, engineered a turnaround to register a hard-fought 17-21, 21-17, 21-17 win over Japan's Ohori in a match that lasted 1 hour 10 minutes to advance to the pre-quarterfinals.
With the win, Sindhu, improved her impressive record against the Japanese shuttler to 11-0. Sindhu will next meet 23-year-old German shuttler Yvonne Li in the second round. It will be the first meeting between the third seed Indian and world number 26 Li.
World number seven Sindhu suffered a straight games defeat to Japan's Akane Yamaguchi last week in the Indonesia Masters. So, the ace Indian shuttler will hope to better that result and go all the way this weekend.
While Sindhu progressed, there was disappointment for India in doubles competition as the mixed doubles pairing of N Sikki Reddy and Dhruv Kapila made a first round exit, falling to the Japanese duo of Kyohei Yamashita and Naru Shinoya, 7-21, 12-21.
In women's doubles, the pair of Sikki Reddy and Ashwini Ponnappa went down fighting in straight games 27-29, 18-21 to Bulgarian fifth seed sisters Gabriela Stoeva and Stefani Stoeva.
Later in the day, India's Sai Praneeth B will be going up against France's Toma Junior Popov while his compatriots Kidambi Srikanth and HS Prannoy will face off against each other for the second time this month.
Srikanth and Prannoy met in the Indoneisa Masters quartefinals last week with the former claiming a straight games win.
In doubles competition, Ashwini will team up with B Sumeeth Reddy to take on the mixed doubles pair of Takuro Hoki and Nami Matsuyama of Japan.
Earlier on Tuesday (November 23), Lakshya Sen, Parupalli Kashyap and couple of doubles pairs crashed out of the tournment in the opening round.
Young Lakhsya went down fighting against top seed Kento Momota, losing 21-23 15-21 to the two-time world champion from Japan in 53 minutes. In another men's singles match, Kashyap lost in straight games 11-21 14-21 to Loh Kean Yew of Singapore.
In men's doubles action, the pair of M R Arjun and Dhruv Kapila lost 20-22 13-21 to Korea's Choi Solgyu and Kim Wonho, while Venkat Gaurav Prasad and Juhi Dewangan went down 12-21 4-21 to Germany pair of Jones Ralfy Jansen and Linda Efler.
(With Agency inputs)