PV Sindhu books place in Macau Open Grand Prix quarterfinals

Macau: Three Indian shuttlers, including P V Sindhu, advanced to the prequarterfinals of the $120,000 Macau Open Grand Prix Gold but it was curtains for Ajay Jayaram in men’s singles, here on Wednesday.

In women’s singles, fifth seed PV Sindhu defeated Indonesia’s Lindaweni Fanetri 21-17, 21-18 to advance to the quarterfinals.

In the last match of the day, seventh seed Prannoy had to endure the longest match of the day as he beat China’s Qiao Bin 12-21, 21-11, 21-19 in a marathon encounter that lasted an hour and five minutes.

However, Sindhu remained as the sole survivor from India after Sai Praneeth and H.S. Prannoy bowled out from Men’s singles.

The opening game saw the Indian take control of proceedings early on as she raced away to an 8-1 lead but her opponent staged a fine comeback to win the next 6 points consecutively to reduce the deficit to 1. She would eventually close the game down 21-13 and take a decisive advantage in the match.

She will next take on Japanese second seed Akane Yamaguchi for a place in the final for the third consecutive year after winning the title the last two years. At Macau, the result was no different, the pair seeded second lost to the Japanese pair of Yuki Fukushima and Sayaka Hirota.