Sindhu, Sai, Jayaram, Verma advance

Hong Kong, Nov 24 : Indians enjoyed a good outing at the ongoing Hong Kong Open badminton tourment with P.V. Sindhu, Sai Nehwal, Ajay Jayaram and Sameer Verma winning their respective singles matches here on Thursday.

In the women's singles, Sindhu defeated Hsu Ya Ching of Taiwan 21-10, 21-14 in 36 minutes while Sai faced a much more difficult task against Sayaka Sato of Japan before prevailing 21-18, 9-21, 21-16 in 51 minutes.

In the men's singles, Jayaram beat Chi's Huang Yuxiang 21-18, 21-19 while Verma won 19-21, 21-15, 21-11 over Kazumasa Sakai of Japan in 53 minutes.

However, H.S. Prannoy crashed out of the men's singles competition after going down fighting to Chong Wei Feng of Malaysia here on Thursday.

Prannoy started off on a promising note at the Hong Kong Coliseum before going down 21-15, 11-21, 15-21 over 58 minutes in the second round encounter.

Sindhu, who had won the Chi Open a few days ago, was off to a poor start with Ching taking an early 4-1 lead. But the Olympic bronze medallist soon recovered to level the scores before winning five consecutive points to lead 9-5.

The Hyderabad shuttler continued to push home her domince, building on the advantage with another five-point streak before clinching the first game with four back to back points.

The Taiwan shuttler produced more of a fight in the second game, going neck and neck with Sindhu till 12-12 before the Indian opened up a three-point lead at 15-12.

Although Ching tried to stage a comeback, Sindhu went on another rampaging run of five points to clinch the game and the match.

Sai faced a strong challenge from Sato, with the duo fighting it out till 12-12 in the opening game. But the London Olympics bronze medallist domited the game from thereon, taking a 17-12 lead and maintained the advantage till the end.

The Japanese came back strongly in the second game, opening up a 7-1 lead early on. With Sai struggling to score, Sato increased her lead steadily before winning the game to level the scores. The third game was a closely contested affair with both shuttlers fighting hard for the points.

The day had however, started on a disappointing note for the Indian contingent with Prannoy going down to Chong. IANS