Malaysia Open 2018: Saina into Next Round, Sameer Bows Out

India’s favourite Saina Nehwal, sailed into second round after defeating Yip Pui Yin of Hong Kong at the 2018 Malaysia Open Super 750 with 21-12, 21-16 in the 42-minute encounter of Women’s Singles.

Saina, who clinched gold at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games 2018, has been in good form and will face the second seed Akane Yamaguchi of Japan in the next round on Wednesday.

While in the Men’s Singles, Sameer Verma made an early exit in the opening round thrashed by Tommy Sugiarto of Indonesia with 13-21, 5-21 in just 32 minutes.

In the Mixed Doubles category, the debutants Kuhoo Garg and Rohan Kapoor of India ended the campaign after losing to the World no. 8 pair He Jiting and Du Yue of China with 9-21, 10-21 in the match that lasted for half-an-hour.

“Everyone at the Malaysia Open are way senior to us. To play on the international circuit against such big players, I don’t consider it as rivalism but that would be a good learning experience,” said Kuhoo Garg.

Another Mixed Doubles duo, India’s top N. Sikki Reddy and Pranaav Jerry Chopra will face Zheng Siwei and Huang Yaqiong of China in their opening round.

After a month-long break, PV Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth, will resume their quest for glory to face Jan O Jorgensen of Denmark and Aya Ohori of Japan in their opening round. While another Men’s Singles player B Sai Praneeth will face Wang Tzu Wei of Taiwan, who has head-to-head record of 2-0.

It will be all-Indian match in the second round of Men’s Singles, if Praneeth and Srikanth get past their opponents in the first round.

The young pair in Men’s Doubles from India, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty will face the seventh seeds Takuto Inoue and Yuki Kaneko from Japan in their opening round.

The seven-day long tournament will have its finals on Sunday, July 1st.