India's ace shuttler Saina Nehwal got off to a rousing start at the Olympics. She had things her way against Switzerland's Sabrina Jaquet in the women's singles group stage match in London on Sunday. The world No 5 needed just 22 minutes to get past the 65-ranked Swiss, winning 21-9, 21-4, at the Wembley arena.
One of India's brightest medal prospects at the Olympics, in-form badminton star Saina Nehwal will start her campaign on Sunday when she takes on unheralded Swiss Sabrina Jaquet in her opening group match at the Wembley Arena in London.
Saina Nehwal will commence her quest for an Olympic medal against unheralded Sabrina Jaquet of Switzerland on July 28. The Indian ace is clubbed in Group E along with Sabrina and Lianne Tan of Belgium.
Saina Nehwal and P V Sindhu are on a collision course at next week's World Championships in Basel, Switzerland, as they have been placed in the same half after the world governing body re-conducted the women's singles draw.
P V Sindhu, K Srikanth, Ajay Jayaram, Subhankar Dey, B Sai Praneeth and Sameer Verma scored easy first round singles victories, while the pair of Jwala Gutta-Ashwini Ponnappa shocked a fancied Malaysian pair to enter the second round of the women's doubles.
Reigning World champion P V Sindhu and B Sai Praneeth were handed easy group stage outings in the badminton draws unveiled on Thursday for the Tokyo Olympics, starting on July 23.
Saina Nehwal and P V Sindhu marched into the women's quarter-finals but all the top four seeds, including defending champion P Kashyap, crashed out of the men's event in the Syed Modi International India Grand Prix in Lucknow.
P V Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth scored contrasting victories to enter the quarter-finals of the US $120,000 Malaysia Masters Grand Prix Gold badminton tournament, in Penang, on Thursday.
The first Indian woman to clinch a silver medal at the World Championship in the 2015 edition at Jakarta, Saina has been struggling ever since, limping out of the Olympics last year with a knee injury.
Kidambi Srikanth and two-time bronze medallist P V Sindhu will headline a 21-member Indian contingent as they gun for the elusive gold medal at the World Badminton Championships starting in Glasgow on Monday.
The 27-year-old London Olympics bronze medallist hard broke a sweat as she cruised past her Swiss opponent 21-11, 21-12 in just 33 minutes at the Emirates Arena.
A summary of sports events and persons who made news on Wednesday.
India's number one singles player Prajnesh Gunneswaran beat Jay Clarke of Great Britain in straight sets to enter the main draw of the Miami Open, on Wednesday.
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