Shuttlers Sindhu, Prannoy advance in All England

PV Sindhu and HS Prannoy advanced to the second round of the All England Open Badminton Championships which began at the Barclaycard Arena here on Wednesday.

Sixth seed Sindhu eased past Danish Mette Poulsen with a 21-10, 21-11 victory in 29 minutes.

In the second round, the Indian will meet Indonesian Dinar Dyah Ayustine, who moved past Danish qualifier Natalia Koch Rohde 21-19, 22-20.

Prannoy defeated China's Qiao Bin 17-21, 22-20, 21-19 in an excruciating men's singles match that lasted an hour and 22 minutes.

India, however, fared badly in the doubles competitions. In the men's doubles category, Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy suffered a first-round exit at the hands of qualifiers Peter Briggs and Tom Wolfenden, who won 21-19, 10-21, 21-18 in 47 minutes.

There was also a huge upset in this category, with Danish second seeds Mathias Boe and Carsten Mogensen being stunned by Lu Kai and Zheng Siwei of China.

The women's doubles pair of Jakkampudi Meghana and Poorvisha S. Ram lost to Chinese Taipei's Hsu Ya Ching and Wu Ti Jung 19-21, 12-21 in 31 minutes.

In the qualifiers earlier, the Verma brothers — Sourabh and Sameer — lost in the opening round, while Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy won the first match before losing in the second round, failing to make the main draw.

Sameer, who had reached the finals at Hong Kong Open, lost 17-21, 12-21 to Japan's Kazumasa Sakai, while National champion Sourabh's fight against Anthony Sinisuka Ginting of Indonesia ended with a 10-21, 21-14, 20-22 loss here.

Ashwini and Sikki defeated England combination of Lauren Smith and Sarah Walker 21-17, 16-21, 24-22 in the first round and then lost 15-21, 21-18, 18-21 to Swiss Nadia Fankhauser and Sannatasah Saniru of Malaysia in the second round.

Eighth seed Saina Nehwal will meet World No. 11 and defending champion Nozomi Okuhara of Japan in the first round later in the day.