P V Sindhu, advanced to the knockout stage of the Women’s Singles at Dubai Super Series Final badminton tournament with two consecutive wins.
However, fourth ranked Kidambi Srikanth crashed out of the Men’s Singles by suffering his second consecutive defeat.
At Dubai last night, Olympic silver medallist Sindhu took just 36 minutes to outplay Sayaka Sato of Japan 21-13 21-12 to register her second straight win in the one million US Dollar event. The 22-year-old Indian on Thursday had defeated World No. 9 He Bingjiao of China in her campaign opener. In her last and final Group A match today, World No. 3 will face World No. 2 Japanese Akane Yamaguchi who also reached the knockout round with two straight wins.
Sindhu and Yamaguchi will clash with each other in their last and final Group A match on Friday.
However, it was all over for Srikanth on Thursday as he lost to Chinese Taipei’s Chou Tien Chen to bow out of the tournament.
Even though he still has a match left in Group B, Srikanth virtually has no chance of making the next stage.
Having suffered a defeat to World No. 1 and defending champion Viktor Axelsen in his opening match on Wednesday, Srikanth failed to improve upon his game and went down 18-21, 18-21 against Chinese Taipei’s Chou Tien Chen.
However, it was all over for Srikanth yesterday as he lost to Chinese Taipei’s Chou Tien Chen in straight games to bow out of the tournament. He had earlier, suffered a defeat to World No. 1 and defending champion Viktor Axelsen in his opening match.