Spain Masters: PV Sindhu cruises into second round; Satwiksairaj Rankireddy-Chirag Shetty forfeit match

Madrid [Spain], March 30 (ANI): Ace Indian badminton player PV Sindhu advanced to the second round in the women’s singles at the Spain Masters 2023 tournament in Madrid on Wednesday.

The two-time Olympic medallist defeated Switzerland’s Jenjira Stadelmann 21-10, 21-14 in a 31-minute affair. Having already defeated Jenjira Stadelmann at the Swiss Open 2023, PV Sindhu has now beaten the European shuttler twice this month.
“I feel very happy. The conditions were very good today. The shuttle was a bit faster but we need to get used to the conditions. Otherwise, it’s been pretty good. I hope I maintain the same rhythm tomorrow as well,” Olympics.com quoted PV Sindhu as saying.

The Swiss Open 2023 champions, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty retired from the men’s doubles competition seven minutes into their match against the world No. 41 Japanese team of Ayato Endo and Yuta Takei due to Satwiksairaj’s injury.

“I just came back from an injury so I wasn’t 100 per cent fit for the match so I didn’t want to push it. We had a good last week and we played good matches at the All England Open so we didn’t want to push ourselves too much as we have more important tournaments coming up,” Satwiksairaj Rankireddy explained the decision to forfeit the match.

The 18th-ranked women’s doubles pair of Gayatri Gopichand and Treesa Jolly lost to Japanese Rena Miyaura and Ayako Sakuramoto 18-21, 16-21.

In the opening match of the men’s singles, Kidambi Srikanth, who dropped to No. 21 in the world rankings, upset Thailand’s Sitthikom Thammasin ranked No. 32 in the world, 21-11, 25-27, 23-21.

In a different men’s singles match, Jan Louda of the Czech Republic, who was ranked 57th, was defeated by B Sai Praneeth. The hour-long match was won by the Indian badminton player 21-16, 18-21, and 21-12.

Aakarshi Kashyap stunned Canada’s world No. 15 Michelle Li 12-21, 21-15, 21-18 while Ashmitha Chaliha beat France’s Leonice Huet 21-12, 22-20 at the BWF Super 300 event.

Malvika Bansod also progressed to the second round of women’s singles while Priyanshu Rajawat and Kiran George also crossed the first-round hurdle in men’s singles.