Tokyo Olympics: PV Sindhu starts with a win, beats Ksenia Polikarpova

NH Bureau Sunday, 25 July 2021 01:33:23 PM

Indian shuttler PV Sindhu (Image: Screengrab from a video tweeted by @Tokyo2020hi)

Tokyo : Indian shuttler PV Sindhu started her journey at Tokyo Olympics with a win over Israel's Ksenia Polikarpova in the women's singles group J match on Sunday.

The 26-year-old Indian, seeded sixth, beat the 58th ranked Polikarpova 21-7 21-10 in a lop-sided opening match.

She will now play against Hong Kong's world number 34 Cheung Ngan Yi in the group stage.

Sindhu won the first game as Polikarpova missed a shot. Polikarpova, who was playing with a strapped knee, continued to struggle with her strokes as Sindhu opened up a 9-3 lead in the second game and then entered the mid-interval with a massive seven-point advantage.

On Saturday, the Indian men's doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty shocked the world number duo of Yang Lee and Chi-Lin Wang of Chinese Taipei in a thrilling group A match.

However, B Sai Praneeth jeopardised his qualification to the knockout stage after going down to world number 47, Misha Zilberman of Israel, in a men's singles group D match.