Olympics Badminton: Sindhu beats Cheung, enters pre-quarters

Tokyo: Indian ace shuttler PV Sindhu beat Hong Kong's NY Cheung and advanced to the pre-quarters of women's singles badminton on Wednesday, reports NDTV. World No. 7 Sindhu, the silver medallist of the 2016 Rio Games, dominated over world No. 34 Cheung throughout the 35-minute group J match, with 21-9 and 21-16.

Using her collection of strokes with varying paces, Sindhu put Cheung into trouble, making her run around the court. Following that, Sindhu came up with excellent placements. Though Cheung scored with her deceptive cross courts, some of her errors added to giving her no chance to pressure Sindhu.

Sindhu was leading from the beginning itself with a 6-2 and reached 10-3. She committed no severe mistakes and came to 11-5 before the interval. Later she finished the opening game with 21-9.

Cheung battled to come back in the second game as she matched the rallies with Sindhu 6-6 and 8-8. Sindhu was also struggling with the shuttle then. Cheung tried to impart more pressure on Sindhu, but the latter pulled herself out with better strokeplay, including a few straight-down-the-line smashes. Sindhu grabbed six straight match points to reach 19-14. After netting a shot, she reeled back to the scoring spree to seal the game with a smash.

Sindhu had won 6 times, including the latest, over Cheung. She will play against Denmark's world No 12 Mia Blichfeldt, who topped Group I.