Malaysia Open: Sindhu crushes Japanese shuttler Miyazaki; secures quarters spot

Kuala Lumpur, Jan 8 (PTI) India's star shuttler PV Sindhu produced an impressive performance on Thursday, defeating higher-ranked Japanese opponent Tomoka Miyazaki to book her spot in the women's singles quarterfinals of the Malaysia Open Super 1000 badminton tournament here.

Former world champion Sindhu, returning after a long injury lay-off, defeated the eighth-seeded Miyazaki 21-8, 21-13 in 33 minutes.

However, it was curtains for ace Indian men's player Lakshya Sen and young Ayush Shetty who both lost at the pre-quarterfinal stage.

Sen, who had broken the three-year jinx of first-round exits in the tournament when he defeated Singapore's Jia Heng Jason Teh on Wednesday, succumbed in the pre-quarterfinals against Hong Kong-China's Lee Cheuk Yiu 22-22, 15-21 in 53 minutes.

Shetty went down fighting against top seed Shi Yu Qi of China 18-21, 21-18, 12-12 in a 70-minute slugfest.

It was Sindhu, 30, who continued to impress on comeback by notching her second win against Miyazaki to take her career head-to-head to 2-1 against the Japanese teenager.

Sindhu raced to a 5–1 lead and then reeled off 13 consecutive points to surge to a commanding 18-4 advantage, before comfortably closing out the opening game in no time.

The second game was also largely one-sided, though the 19-year-old Miyazaki briefly stayed in touch trailing by just a point at 8-9. However, Sindhu drew on her vast experience to pull away with a six-point lead at 17–11 and wrapped up the match with ease.

Sindhu will take on the winner of the pre-quarterfinal game between China's Gao Fang Jie and third-seeded Japanese Akane Yamaguchi.

Earlier on Wednesday, the former world No 1 pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, saw off Chinese Taipei's Yang Po-Hsuan and Lee Jhe-Hue 21-13 21-15 in 35 minutes to also enter the men's doubles pre-quarterfinals. PTI AM AM DDV