Tokyo Olympics: PV Sindhu Beats Cheung In Straight Games, Enters Pre-quarterfinals

World champion P.V. Sindhu advanced to the pre-quarterfinals of the women’s singles badminton event at the Tokyo Olympics after beating Hong Kong’s NY Cheung in a Group J match in Japan on Wednesday. The 26-year-old Indian, who had claimed a silver medal in the last edition in Rio, prevailed over world No. 34 Cheung 21-9 21-16 in a 35-minute match to top the group. This was Sindhu's sixth win over Cheung in as many meetings.

PV Sindhu dominated her Hong Kong rival right from the word 'Go' with a 12-point lead in the first set which she won convincingly. However, the Rio Olympics silver medalist had to sweat a little bit in the second round as Cheung Ngan Yi overhead deception and cross drops to mid-court that kept the reigning world champion at bay and when the scoreline read 10-10, it seemed as if the Hong Kong shuttler would gain complete control of the proceedings but it was not to be as Sindhu showed great enthusiasm and struck back when it mattered the most as Cheng was could not match up to her and ended up suffering a defeat in straight sets.

With this win, PV Sindhu has successfully qualified for the knockouts where the risks are high but the reward is higher but, the ace shuttler cannot afford to slip from hereon. PV Sindhu defeated Ksenia Polikarpova of Israel 21-7, 21-10 in her opening group match on Sunday. At the same time, PV Sindhu is also the last hope in Indian badminton speaking about the ongoing Tokyo Olympics along with Sai Praneet in the men's singles. On Tuesday, the men's doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Ranikreddy and Chirag Shetty bowed out despite winning their final group game 21-17,21-19 against the British pair of Ben Lane and Sean Vendy.

India’s B Sai Praneeth will later today take on Mark Caljouw of the Netherlands in his final Group D men’s singles match. Praneeth is out of contention for the knockouts, having lost to Israel’s Misha Zilberman in straight games in his first group match.