Sindhu cruises, Kiran turns it around in style to reach last-8

new delhi: Two-time Olympics medallist PV Sindhu progressed to the quarterfinals, while Kiran George delivered a gritty performance under pressure to keep the home flag flying in men’s singles at the India Open Super 750 here on Thursday.

Sindhu cruised past Japan’s world No. 46 Manami Suizu with a 21-15 21-13 win, while Kiran pulled off a stunning recovery, saving six game points to outlast Alex Lanier 22-20 21-13 to enter his maiden quarterfinals of a Super 750 event at the KD Jadhav Indoor Hall here.

“I was just taking it one point at a time, not thinking about the lead. I think that helped me secure the first set. I was just being patient,” Kiran said after the match.

Title contenders Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, who had won the 2022 edition, recovered from an opening game reversal to beat Japan’s Kenya Mitsuhashi and Hiroki Okamura 20-22 21-14 21-16 to inch closer to the crown.

“I think they were quite good in their flat exchanges. As I said, we can speed up controlling easy errors which we shouldn’t have. I think we were cruising quite comfortably in the first game, but happy that we could. However tired the game was, we still managed to beat,” Chirag said.

In other results, mixed doubles pair of Tanisha Crasto and Dhruv Kapila went down to eighth seeds Hiroki Midorikawa and Natsu Saito 18-21 17-21.

Women’s doubles combination of Ashwini Ponnappa and Tanisha, Rutuparna Panda and Swetaparna Panda and mixed doubles pair of Ashith Surya and Amrutha Pramuthesh were knocked out in the second round.

In other results, Viktor Axelsen beat Singapore’s Jia Heng Jason 21-11 21- 14 to also reach the quarterfinals, while former world champion Loh Kean Yew outwitted sixth-seeded

Japanese Kodai Naraoka 21-12 24-22. In the women’s singles, top seed and Olympics champion An Se-Young streamrolled Thailand’s Ratchanok Intanon 21-15 21-8 to also progress

to the last-eight. agencies