World Tour Finals: Sindhu, Srikanth make winning start; Lakshya also through

Bali: Top Indian shuttlers P V Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth registered straight-game victories to make impressive starts to their respective singles campaigns at the season-ending BWF World Tour Finals here on Wednesday.

Young Lakshya Sen also won his first match of Group A after world number two Kento Momota of Japan retired injured when the scoreline was 1-1 in the first game.

Sindhu, a two-time Olympic medallist, saw off Denmark's Line Christophersen 21-14 21-16 in a lop-sided Group A contest after former world number 1 Srikanth beat France's Toma Junior Popov 21-14 21-16 in 42 minutes in his opening match of Group B.

The reigning world champion, the only Indian to win the year-ending tournament in 2018, will meet Germany's Yvonne Li next.

Srikanth, who had reached the knockout stage of the 2014 edition, will next face Thailand's three-time junior world champion Kunlavut Vitidsarn.

The women's doubles pair of Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy, however, lost 14-21 18-21 to second-seeded Japanese combination of Nami Matsuyama and Chiharu Shida in their opening Group B match.

Also starting with a loss was the men's doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, beaten 16-21 5-21 by the Danish combination of Kim Astrup and Anders Rasmussen in a Group A clash.

Sindhu looked in great control as she opened up a 5-2 lead and though Line made it 7-6, the Indian quickly reeled off 10 straight points to march to 16-8 and seal the opening game comfortably.

After the change of sides, Line put up a slightly better show as she led briefly at 4-2 before Sindhu grabbed a slender 11-10 advantage at the interval.