2017 BWF Worlds: Saina Nehwal beats World No. 3 Sung Ji Hyun to storm into quarter-finals

IANS

New Delhi: Indian badminton ace Saina Nehwal pulled off a stunner in the pre-quarter round at Glasgow in the BWF World Championships tonight, beating World No. 3 Sung Ji Hyun 21-19, 21-15 to sail into the quarters for the eighth time. PV Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth are the other Indians that emerged victorious in their respective singles match, today.

Saina took to level terms against the World No. 3, but failed to continue with the momentum trailing 15-10. But the Indian scripted a clinical comeback narrowly edge past Hyun to win 21-19 in the first set. Things fell in favour of the Indian in the second set and ergo a victory with 21-15. With this, Saina scripted history to become the first woman to reach the quareterfinals at seven successive World Championships.

Earlier into the day, Srikanth reached the quarter-final round in the men's singles category after defeating Anders Antonsen of Denmark 21-14 21-18. Then in the women's singles, PV Sindhu scripted a comeback to narrowly edge past World No. 17 Cheung Ngan Yi winning by 19-21, 23-21, 21-17.

However, both Ajay Jayaram and Sai Praneeth suffered defeat in their respective matches. While the latter went down to World No. 4 Chou Tien Chen 21-19, 10-21, 12-21, the former was crumbled down 11-21, 10-21 by reigning Olympic champion & two-time world champion Chen Long. In the mixed doubles category, the Indian pair of Pranaav Jerry Chopra and N. Sikki Reddy lost to seventh seeded Indonesian pair of Debby Susanto and Praveen Jordan 20-22 21-18 21-18.