India's Saina Nehwal, PV Sindhu, Kidambi Srikanth and B Sai Praneeth progressed to the second round of the ongoing Australian Open Superseries after defeating their respective opponents on Wednesday. However, Ajay Jayaram, currently India's top-ranked male badminton player, and HS Prannoy made a first-round exit.
Defending champion Saina -- unseeded this year -- registered a comfortable 21-10, 21-16 win against fourth seed Sung Ji Hyun in 39 minutes. With this win, Saina took her head-to-head tally to 5-2 against the Korean. They had previously met at the All England Open earlier this year, where Sung won 22-20, 22-20 after Saina failed to capitalise on a 17-13 lead in the opening game.
Sindhu, whose form has plateaued since winning the India Open Superseries in the end of March, defeated Sayaka Sato of Japan 21-17, 14-21, 21-18 to advance. After the Indian held the momentum to take the first game, Sato bounced back to dominate the second. In the decider, Sindhu fought back, surging ahead after the changeover. However, Sindhu endured some nervy moments towards the end, wasting three match points before getting the win.
Earlier in the day, Srikanth, fresh from his title win at the Indonesia Open, recorded a win in straight games, defeating qualifier Kan Chao Yu 21-13, 21-16 in 27 minutes. He will next face World No. 1 Son Wan Ho in the next round. He had defeated Son in the semi-finals of the Indonesia Open last week.
B Sai Praneeth, who had suffered a first-round defeat against Son in Indonesia, came back from a game down to win 10-21, 21-12, 21-10 against Indonesia's Tommy Sugiarto in 47 minutes. This was his first win against Sugiarto -- he now has a head-to-head tally of 1-2 against the Indonesian. He will next meet China's Huang Yuxiang.
Ajay Jayaram, ranked 13th in the world, lost 21-14, 10-21, 9-21 to the in-form NG Ka Long Angus from Hong Kong. The match lasted 42 minutes. Angus had also won his three previous matches against Jayaram, who has failed to progress beyond the first round in four of the seven tournaments he has participated in this year. HS Prannoy -- after an impressive run in Indonesia, defeating World No. 3 Lee Chong Wei and Olympic gold medallist Chen Long in the second round and quarterfinals respectively -- lost to England's Rajiv Ouseph 19-21, 13-21 in a match lasting 37 minutes.
Among other Indians, Parupalli Kashyap and Siril Verma, who had entered the men's singles draw after winning their two respective matches in the qualifiers on Wednesday, ended their campaigns after losing to Son and Hans-Kristian Solberg Vittinghus respectively. While Kashyap gave a tough fight to the current World No. 1, winning the second game, he eventually faced a 18-21, 21-14, 15-21 defeat in a match that lasted 65 minutes. Siril lost 16-21, 8-21 against defending champion Vittinghus. Ruthvika Shivani Gadde, after qualifying for the women's singles draw defeating Sylvina Kurniawan and Ruwindi Serasinghe in straight games in the two qualifying rounds, lost to China's 19-year-old Chen Xiaoxin in a match lasting an hour.