Ningbo: PV Sindhu made a winning start to the Badminton Asia Championships with a straight-game win over Ester Nurumi Wardoyo of Indonesia in the women’s singles while Lakshya Sen made an early exit from the men’s singles draw here on Wednesday.
World No. 17 Sindhu won 21-15 21-19 in 44 minutes against 19-year-old Wardoyo, ranked 36th.
Sindhu will be up against No. 4 and third seed Akane Yamaguchi of Japan in the pre-quarterfinals on Thursday.
Meanwhile, Sen dished out a lackluster performance against Lee Chia Hao of Chinese Taipei, a finalist at the All England Championships, to lose 18-21 10-21 in the first round. Earlier in the day, HS Prannoy also made an early exit as he lost 16-21 21-12 11-21 in a Round-of-32 match.
Kiran George, however, made it to the pre-quarterfinals with a 21-16, 21-8 win over Dmitriy Panarin of Kazakhstan in 35 minutes.
In the women’s singles, Aakarshi Kashyap, Anupama Upadhyaya, Malvika Bansod lost their respective matches to crash out of the tournament.
While Aakarshi lost to world No. 3 Han Yue of China 13-21 7-21 in 31 minutes, Anupama was beaten by world number 13 and eighth seed Ratchanok Intanon of Thailand 13-21 14-21. Bansod was beaten by Gao Fang Jie of China 14-21 8-21.
In women’s doubles, Priya Konjengbam and Shruti Mishra suffered defeat to Chinese Taipei’s Shuo Yun Sung and Chien Hui Yu 11-21 13-21.