The opening day of the World Badminton Championships started on a positive note for Indian shuttlers as both Kidambi Srikanth and Sameer Verma won their respective first round matches to advance further. Srikanth who is India’s biggest hope in the event, defeated Russia’s Sergey Sirant 21-13,21-12. On the other hand, Verma’s opponent Pablo Abian had to retire in 2nd round when score read 21-8,17-4 in favour of Indian.
"I had a decent break after the Indonesian Open and I worked hard after that before coming in here. First rounds can always be tough in big Championships like this and I am happy that I came through it. It is a confidence booster. I have not set any targets as such, I just want to play and I want to go match by match. I did not think about the second round before this match and now I am only thinking about the next match," said Srikanth.
Unfortunately, Sumeeth Reddy and Ashwini Ponappa lost in the mixed doubles category on Day 2. Ponappa and Reddy provided a tough fight in the first two sets but went down battling 17-21, 21-18, 5-21 to the Chinese pair of Yilyu Wang and Dongping Huang.
PV Sindhu and Saina Nehwal both of whom received a bye in the first round, will face Korea’s Hyo Min Kim in the second match on Monday