Australian Open | Sindhu, Srikanth, Prannoy enter second round; Manjunath secures upset win
The Hindu
Unheralded Indian Mithun Manjunath stuns 4th seed Loh in Aus Open; Sindhu, Srikanth win. Manjunath faces Malaysian in 2nd round; Sen quits due to injury. Sindhu, Srikanth, Prannoy, Rajawat win singles; Kapoor-Reddy lose in mixed doubles.
Unheralded Indian Mithun Manjunath stunned fourth seed and world number seven Kean Yew Loh of Singapore in the opening round while PV Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth secured straight-game wins at the Australia Open badminton tournament here on Wednesday.
Manjunath, ranked 50th in the world, beat Loh 21-19 21-19 in the men's singles first round match that lasted 41 minutes.
Manjunath faces the winner of the match between Lee Zii Jia and Leong Jun Hao — both Malaysians — in the second round of the BWF Super 500 tournament.
Meanwhile, Lakshya Sen conceded his men's singles match against compatriot Kiran George due to an injury. Sen was trailing 0-5 in the opening game when he decided to quit.
Fifth seed Sindhu, who has lost in the first round at seven different tour events this season and is playing under a new personal coach in Malaysia's Muhammad Hafiz Hashim, defeated compatriot Ashmita Chaliha 21-18 21-13 in 36 minutes in her opening women's singles match.
In other men's singles opening round matches, Srikanth, world No.19, defeated Japan's Kenta Nishimoto 21-18 21-7, while sixth seed HS Prannoy had to dig deep to beat Cheuk Yiu Lee of Hong Kong 21-18 16-21 21-15.
Rising shuttler Priyanshu Rajawat also tasted success as he beat Australia's Nathan Tang 21-12 21-16.
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