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Sindhu enters third round, Jwala-Ashwini pair bows out

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Press Trust of India Copenhagen
India's teen sensation P V Sindhu stormed into the third round of the World Badminton Championship with a straight game victory over Olga Golovanova of Russia in women's singles match here today.

The men's doubles pair of Manu Attri and Sumeeth Reddy B stunned 15th seeded Japanese duo of Hirokatsu Hashimoto and Noriyasu Hirata 21-19 21-19 in 44 minutes to advance to the third round.

However, it was curtains for women's doubles pair of Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa after they lost their second round match to fifth seeded Chinese combination of Qing Tian and Yunlei Zhao without putting up a fight.
 

Manu and Sumeeth will face the winner of the match between Korea's Yong Dae Lee and Yeon Seong Yoo and Aussie pair of Raymond Tam and Glenn Warfe.

Sindhu, seeded 11th, took 40 minutes to prevail over her Russian opponent 21-12 21-17 in the second round match at the Ballerup Super Arena here.

She will next take on sixth seeded Yeon Ju Bae of Korea.

Sindhu won a total of 42 points as compared to 29 by the Russian girl.

The world No. 12 from Hyderabad looked a bit rusty to start with and was initially trailing in the opening game. She was playing the catching-up game till 10-10 before Sindhu managed to reel off four consecutive points and surge ahead to 14-10.

There was no looking back after that, as Sindhu swiftly sealed the game in her favour with Golovanova earning just two more points.

In the second game, the Russian got her act together and opened up a big lead, moving up to 11-6 at the break. But just when it seemed that the match would go into the decider, the Indian earned five points on the trot to level the scores at 11-11.

Thereafter it was a neck-and-neck battle for a brief period but Sindhu used all her experience to take a slight lead and eventually wrapped up the issue quite comfortably to advance to the next round.

Earlier, the world No. 7 Chinese duo outplayed the Glasgow Commonwealth Games silver medallist combo of Jwala and Ashwini 21-16 21-8 in just 31 minutes.

With this victory the Chinese girls have now extended their unbeaten lead over the Indians to 7-0.

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First Published: Aug 27 2014 | 7:00 PM IST

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