World No. 3 and London Olympics badminton bronze medallist Saina Nehwal had cut short the dream of Aprilia Yuswandari of Indonesia of winning after she crashed into the women's singles second round of the $250,000 Hong Kong Open Super Series here Wednesday.
As far as the men's singles are considered, Ajay Jayaram and London Olympics quarter-finalist Parupalli Kashyap also won their respective ties to advance to the next round of the final Super Series tournament of the calendar.
Meanwhile, the day belonged to the gritty Hyderabad girl won 22-20, 21-8 in mere 33 minutes at the Hong Kong Coliseum to clinch a third career victory in as many matches over the World No.34 Indonesian.
During the first game, it was a close fight between the two Asians. However, it was Saina who reached game point with Aprilia at 17. It was brave front put up by the Indonesian eventually saving all three of them, levelling the game at 20-all.
But, there was no mood of giving up showed by Saina who quickly grabbed the next two points and wrap the game finally.
Saina proved too good for the emerging Indonesian player Aprilia in the second game as she raced away to a 19-6 lead, winning 10 straight points. The 22-year-old took just one match-point to complete the required formalities.
In her next match, Saina faces Lin Wang of China, who has a 3-2 head-to-head record against the World No.3.
There was much more for the Indian badminton players to cheer about. In men's action, Mumbai's Jayaram won a scintillating encounter to upset World No.17 Zhengming Wang of China 22-20, 23-21 in 35 minutes. He has now set up a clash with World No.1 and top seed Lee Chong Wei of Malaysia, who has an impeccable 4-0 head-to-head against the Indian.
In another encounter, Kashyap caused another upset overcoming seventh seeded Jan O Jorgensen of Denmark 24-22, 20-22, 22-20 in a marathon match that lasted one hour and eight minutes. The Hyderabadi levelled the head-to-head against the Danish 1-1.
In mixed doubles match, Pranaav Chopra and N. Siki Reddy beat American duo of Phillip Chew and Jamie Subandhi 21-19, 21-15 to move into the second round.
However, the list of losers was longer for India as P.V. Sindhu (women's singles), Tarun Kona/Arun Vishnu (men's doubles) and Tarun Kona/Ashwini Ponnappa, Akshay Dewalkar/Pradnya Gadre and Arun Vishnu/Aparna Balan went out of the tournament on the first day of action.
Considering the results achieved by the Indian players, it is now important for the rest to come good by overcoming the challenges ahead. More specifically, it will be a litmus test for Saina because she might be pitted against Yanjiao Jiang against whom she never won a single match. The Chinese player has always been like an unresolved puzzle for Saina as she holds a 5-0 record against her.
It has to be remembered that the ace Indian shuttler went down fighting with 17-21, 10-21 against Jiang during the Korean Open Superseries title as well.
