Not again, Pornpawee: PV Sindhu avenges twin losses to world No. 10 on way to quarterfinals

Huelva (Spain), December 16

Defending champion PV Sindhu stormed into the women’s singles quarterfinals of the BWF World Championships with a straight-game win over Pornpawee Chochuwong of Thailand here today.

The world No. 7 defeated her Thai opponent, ranked three places below her, 21-14 21-18 in a pre-quarterfinals match that lasted 48 minutes.

With this win, the sixth-seeded Sindhu extended her head-to-head record against Chochuwong to 5-3.

Sindhu also avenged her two losses to Chochuwong this season — a group match of the World Tour Finals earlier this month and All England Championships in March.

A tough test awaits the double Olympics medallist in the quarterfinals. She faces top seed and world No. 1 Tai Tzu Ying of Chinese Taipei, who beat Kirsty Gilmour of Scotland 21-10 19-21 21-11.

Meanwhile, both India’s women’s and men’s doubles teams suffered defeats in the pre-quarters.

The women’s doubles pair of Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy lost 13-21 15-21 to Thailand’s Jongkolphan Kititharakul and Rawinda Prajongjai.

The men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty suffered a 20-22 21-18 15-21 defeat to Ong Yew Sin and Teo Ee Yi of Malaysia. — PTI