Indian shuttler Saina Nehwal beat defending champion Nozomi Okuhara of Japan to advance to the second round of the All England Open Badminton Championships in Birmingham on Wednesday.
Nehwal beat Okuhara 21-15, 21-14 in a match that saw the Indian hardly put a foot wrong. With the win, Nehwal improved her head-to-head record to 6-1 against the World No 11 from Japan.
It was mixed day for India at the Championships as Ajay Jayaram lost 19-21, 13-21 to China’s Huang Yuxiang while India’s men’s doubles pair of Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy were also sent packing as they lost to England’s Peter Briggs and Tom Wolfenden 19-21, 21-10, 18-21. It was bad news for India’s highest-ranked women’s pair as well as Meghana Jakkampudi and Poorvisha S Ram who lost to Chinese Taipei’s Hsu Ya Ching and Wu Ti Jung 19-21, 12-21.
However, Olympic silver medalist PV Sindhu advanced to round two with an easy 21-10, 21-11 win over Denmark’s Mette Poulsen. Even men’s singles shuttler HS Prannoy came from a game down to beat Qiao Bin of China 17-21, 22-20, 21-19 in a thriller.