China Open: Shuttler Malvika stuns Olympics medallist in opening round

Malvika Bansod pulled off a sensational victory over Paris Olympics bronze medallist Gregoria Mariska Tunjung of Indonesia in the women’s singles opening round to emerge as the lone Indian survivor in the China Open Super 100 badminton tournament here today.

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The 22-year-old Indian, ranked 43rd in the world, saved three game points in the opening game to defeat the world No. 7 Indonesian Tunjung, seeded fifth, 26-24 21-19 in a 46-minute match, marking the biggest win of her career. Malvika will next take on Scotland’s Kristy Gilmour, a two-time Commonwealth Games medallist.

Aakarshi Kashyap and Samiya Imad Farooqui exited in the first round. Aakarshi lost to Chinese Taipei’s Chiu Pin-Chian 15-21 19-21, while Samiya was outplayed by Gilmour 9-21 7-21. In men’s singles, Kiran George lost to Japan’s Kenta Nishimoto 21-4 10-21 21-23 in his opening match.

The women’s doubles pair of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand went down 21-16 15-21 17-21 to Chinese Taipei’s Hsieh Pei Shan and Hung En-Tzu. In mixed doubles, B Sumeeth Reddy and N Sikki Reddy lost 10-21 16-21 to Malaysia’s Tan Kian Meng and Lai Pei Jing,

while Sathish Kumar Karunakaran and Aadya Variyath went down 14-21 11-21 to Malaysia’s Chen tang Jie and Toh Ee Wei.