Sport

Anup Sridhar, Saina begin well

KUALA LUMPUR: Anup Sridhar and Saina Nehwal cruised into singles second round but Shruti Kurian and Jwala Ghutta bowed out of women’s doubles at the World Badminton championships here on Monday.

Sridhar got the better of Juergen Koch of Austria 21-15, 21-19 in 36 minutes while Saina beat Switzerland’s Jeanine Cicoginini 21-12, 21-12 in first round matches. Sridhar, however, has a tough challenge ahead as he faces Olympic Champion Taufiq Hidayat of Indonesia next. Saina will play either Juliane Schenk of Germany or Kristina Ludikova of Czech Republic.

The country’s top women’s pairing of Jwala and Shruti went down fighting 22-20, 15-21 18-21 against the Swedish pair of Elin Bergblom and Johanna Persson. The men’s National champion, Chetan Anand, was scheduled to launch his campaign with a first round encounter against ninth seed Sony Di Kuncoro of Indonesia on Tuesday. Trupti Murgunde was to play Pui Yin Yip of Hong Kong in women’s singles.

The results: Singles: Men: Anup Sridhar (Ind) bt Juergen Koch (Aut) 21-15, 21-19; Ng Wei (Hkg) bt Roman Spitko (Ger) 20-22, 21-15, 21-12; Dicky Palyama (Ned) bt Kaveh Mehrabi (Iri) 21-15, 21-13; Na bil Lasmari (Alg) bt Kennevic Asuncion (Phi) 21-17, 21-10; Taufik Hidayat (Ina) bt Jose Antonio Crespo (Esp) 21-13, 21-7; Muhd Hafiz B Hashim bt Stuart Gomez 21-7, 21-8; Scott Evans bt Eric Go 21-12, 14,21, 21-17; Lee Tsuen Seng bt Petr Koukal 21-16, 21-8; Shoji Sato bt Bobby Milroy 21-9, 21-15; Lee Hyun Ii bt Lee Yen Hui Kendrick 21-7, 9-21, 21-18