Defending champion PV Sindhu stormed into the women’s singles quarter finals of the BWF World Championships with a straight-game win over Pornpawee Chochuwong of Thailand here on Thursday.

The world No. 7 defeated her Thai opponent, ranked three places below her, 21-14, 21-18 in the pre-quarter final match that lasted 48 minutes. In the men’s singles, 12th seed Kidambi Srikanth outplayed unseeded Guang Zu Lu of China 21-10, 21-15 to enter the last eight.

Sindhu, seeded sixth in the showpiece tournament, extended her head-to-head record against Chochuwong to 5-3 with her win on Thursday.

She also avenged her twin losses to the Thai shuttler this season — in a group match of the BWF World Tour Finals earlier this month and the All England Championships in March.

Double Olympic medallist Sindhu next faces top seed and world No. 1 Tai Tzu Ying of Taiwan, who beat Kirsty Gilmour of Scotland 21-10, 19-21, 21-11.

The last time these two shuttlers met was at the Tokyo Olympics semi-finals when the Taiwanese defeated Sindhu 21-18, 21-12.

Tai Tzu went on to clinch the silver while Sindhu brought home the bronze. Their quarter final here will be their 20th meeting, with the Taiwanese having won 14 times and Sindhu winning five times.

Doubles loss

On Thursday, in both the women’s and men’s doubles pre-quarter finals, Indians suffered defeat.

The women’s doubles pair of Ashwini Ponnappa and N. Sikki Reddy lost 13-21, 15-21 to the Thai duo of Jongkolphan Kititharakul and Rawinda Prajongjai. The men’s pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty suffered a 20-22, 21-18, 15-21 defeat to Ong Yew Sin and Teo Ee Yi of Malaysia.