Indian players PV Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth stormed into the singles quarterfinals of the Madrid Spain Masters badminton tournament after winning their respective matches in straight games, here on Thursday. Two-time Olympic medalist Sindhu reached the last eight of a tournament for the first time this year. In women’s singles, she defeated Indonesia’s Putri Kusuma Wardani 21-16 21-14 in a match that lasted more than half an hour. Srikanth, ranked 21st in the world, beat compatriot B Sai Praneeth, ranked 49th, 21-15, 21-12 in his second round match.
The 27-year-old Sindhu, seeded second, is struggling to find her rhythm after returning from injury. She managed to cross the second round hurdle for the first time in 2023. Sindhu, who has dropped out of the top-10 list for the first time since November 2016 due to a string of poor performances, will face Denmark’s Mia Blichfeldt in the last eight. In the men’s singles, Srikanth will face a tough challenge from former world number one Kenta Nishimoto of Japan in the quarterfinals.
Nishimoto was given a walkover by Arnaud Merkel of France in the second round match. Sameer Verma, Kiran George and Priyanshu Rajawat crashed out of the men’s singles event after losing in the second round. Sameer lost 15-21 14-21 to second seed Kanta Tsuneyama of Japan. George went down 17-21 12-21 to Magnus Johansen of Denmark in 31 minutes while Rajawat went down 14-21 15 to Toma Junior Popov of France. Defeated by -21. Aakarshi Kashyap and Ashmita Kahila suffered defeats in women’s singles while Malvika Bansod gave a walkover to top seed Carolina Marin of Spain. The men’s doubles pair of MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila and the women’s doubles pair of Sikki Reddy and Aarthi Sara Sunil also faced defeat.
