Saina, Chetan advance to prequarters in WBC

Hyderabad: Ace shuttlers Saina Nehwal and Chetan Anand notched up easy wins but wild card entrant P Kashyap fell by the wayside as India rounded off a mixed day at the World Badminton Championships at Gachibowli stadium here today.


Sixth seed Saina didn't show any sign of fatigue after recovering from a recent bout of chicken pox and outplayed Russian Anastasia Prokopenko 21-10 21-17 in just 27 minutes to advance to the pre quarterfinals.

She will next face Bulgarian Petya Nedelcheva, who beat Singapore's Aiying Xing 26-24 19-21 21-6.

In men's singles, 15th seed Chetan steamrolled Bulgarian Stilian Makarski 21-9 21-17 in a 28-minute match to set up a third round clash with sixth seed Sony Dwi Kuncoro of Indonesia tomorrow. Sony beat Poland's Przemyslaw Wacha 21-12 21-13.

Kashyap created a flutter by winning the first game against World number two Jin Chen but the Indian was outdone by the Chinese laster on and went down 21-14 10-21 7-21 in a 53-minute encounter.

In the men's doubles event, the Indian pair of Akshay Dewalkar and Jishnu Sanyal also squandered a game's lead to go down 21-17 13-21 18-21 against 16th seed Vitalij Durkin and Alexandr Nikolaenko of Russia in 40 minutes.

Women's doubles combo of Aparna Balan and Shruti Kurian were shown the door by the second seeded Chinese pair of Shu Cheng and Yunlei Zhao 21-16 21-16 in an half an hour battle.

Among others in fray, top seed Mi Zhou of Hong Kong beat Kiwi Michelle Chan Ky 21-11 21-15, while men's number one seed Chong Wei Lee of Malaysia beat Ola Fagbemi of Nigeria 21-11 21-14.

Mercurial world number four Taufik Hidayat defeated Mathieu Lo Ying Ping 21-17 21-15 in the men's singles. Third seed Dane Peter Hoeg Gade also reached the third round beating Japanese Sho Sasaki 21-11 21-12 in another match.

Sixth seed Saina, who got a bye in the first round, started her campaign aggressively and opened up a lead of 12-8. She then smashed her way to pocket the first game.

However, in the next game, she had to struggle as a change in court made her vulnerable to the slow drift.

In a battle of nerves, the two rivals went neck and neck from 5-5 to 14-14 but after the fierce see-saw battle, it was the Hyderabadi who had the last laugh.

"In the first game, the drift was fast so I played a more attacking game and involved in more smashes. She couldn't pick up those but in the same game I was on the other side, so knowing the wind I involved in some long rallies," Saina told reporters.

"I have played her for the first time but yesterday I saw her play. She has some good drives. I was confident of myself and I am happy that I started my tournament on the right note," she added.