Dubai : Saina Nehwal and Kidambi Srikanth were the only two Indian shuttlers who on Wednesday qualified for the prestigious year-ending $1 million BWF World Superseries Finals to be played at the Hamdan Sports Complex here from December 9-13. The tournament sees the top eight players/pairs of the world compete in all the five categories of the sport — singles (men’s and women’s) and doubles (men’s, women’s and mixed). Both Saina, who had also reached the title round of this event in 2011, and Srikanth had also qualified last year.
World No.2 Saina qualified quite comfortably, finishing fifth in the Superseries women’s singles rankings. The Olympic bronze medallist clinched the India Open title in March after reaching the final of the All England Open — both of which were Superseries events. Saina had also reached the final of the China Open. In men’s singles, China’s Tian Houwei, who finished seventh, missed out as only two players from a member association, in this case China, are eligible to contest. As compatriots, two-time Olympic champion Lin Dan and reigning World Champion Chen Long qualified as No.1 and 5 respectively, Tian had to miss out. This proved lucky for Srikanth who was able to make the list despite finishing ninth. Since Tian couldn’t qualify, the Indian was happy to grab his spot.
Sindu, Pranoy advance
Macau: Indian shuttler and two-time defending champion P.V. Sindhu entered the women’s singles second round of the $120,000 Macau Open Grand Prix Gold with a straight games victory over South Korean Kim Hyo Min here on Wednesday. The fifth seeded Indian took 41 minutes to defeat Kim 21-13, 22-20 at the Tap Seac Multisport Pavilion Macau. This was the double World Championship bronze medallist’s third win in as many meetings over the World No.25. Next up, Sindhu will take on old foe, Indonesian Lindaweni Fanetri for a place in the last eight. The Hyderabadi has a strong 6-2 record against the Indonesian, having won their last four previous meetings. Earlier in the day, seventh seed H.S. Prannoy and 15th seed B. Sai Praneeth also moved ahead into the third round of men’s singles after notching straight game victories in the second round. While Prannoy took just over half an hour to defeat Chinese Taipei’s Lin Chia Hsuan 21-19, 21-15.
