Sindhu ends first-round curse with win at China Open

Changzhou: Double Olympic medallist P V Sindhu overcame world number six Tomoka Miyazaki of Japan to make a promising start to her campaign at the China Open Super 1000 badminton tournament here on Wednesday.

Sindhu, a former world champion, prevailed 21-15, 8-21, 21-17 over the 2022 world junior champion Miyazaki in 62 minutes.

“It was a much-awaited win for me. The first round was very important for me to cross. It was three games (contest) and even in the third set, it was important for me to take the lead from the beginning because one side was very disadvantaged,” Sindhu said.

The 30-year-old from Hyderabad will now face fellow Indian Unnati Hooda, a winner of two super 100 titles at the 2022 Odisha Masters and 2023 Abu Dhabi Masters.

The 17-year-old Unnati stunned Scotland’s Kirsty Gilmour, a two-time medallist at the Commonwealth Games, 21-11, 21-16 in a 36-minute match at the Olympic Sports Centre Gymnasium.

The world No 15 men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty also made a strong start, defeating Japan’s Kenya Mitsuhashi and Hiroki Okamura 21-13, 21-9 in just 31 minutes.

The Asian Games champions will next face eight seeded Indonesian combination of Leo Rolly Carnando and Bagas Maulana.