Star India shuttler PV Sindhu continued her impressive run at the Madrid Spain Masters, advancing to the quarter finals with a straight-game win over Taiwan’s Huang Yu-Hsun here on Thursday.
It was a smooth performance from Sindhu as she was hardly tested by the Taiwanese qualifier, ranked world No. 63, resulting in a 21-14, 21-12 win in 36 minutes.
The former world champion, who finished runner-up in the last edition, will take on either sixth seed Supanida Katethong of Thailand or Japan’s Natsuki Nidaira.
Men’s doubles duo MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila entered the quarter final with a 21-17, 21-19 win over Scotland’s Christopher Grimley and Matthew Grimley. The mixed doubles pair of B Sumeeth Reddy and N Sikki Reddy also advanced with a 22-20, 21-18 win over Presley Smith and Allison Lee of the US.
World No. 20 women’s doubles pair of Tanisha Crasto and Ashwini Ponnappa, seeded third, made it to the last eight after defeating Tiffany Ho and Gronya Somerville of Australia 21-14, 21-8.
In the opening game, Sindhu was 3-0 up initially but then entered a phase where she often found the net or went long as her rival grabbed a 7-6 lead before taking a one-point advantage with a straight down-the-line smash.
The Indian, however, produced a better show after resumption, taking a 18-12 cushion with Yu-Hsun making errors. She soon grabbed eight game points, wasted two of them before sealing the opening game with her trademark smash.
After the change of sides, Yu-Hsun tried to use her drops and placements but she didn’t have power in her smashes.Soon Sindhu had a five-point advantage at the break.
A smash handed another eight match points to Sindhu and she wrapped it up when her opponent sprayed into the net again.
