Saina Nehwal lived up to her billing to progress into the third round of the World Badminton Championships at the Gachibowli Stadium here on Wednesday. She whipped Russian Anastasia Prokopenko 21-10 21-17.
Chetan Anand, too, progressed to 3rd round with a 21-921-17 win over Stilian Makarski of Bulgaria. However, Parupalli Kashyap and the men’s doubles team of Akshay Dewalkar and Jishnu Sanyal weredefeated in the second round.
Saina will next play Bulgarian Petya Nedelcheva, whom she beat 21-18 21-12 in the first round on way to the Indonesian Open title in June.
Saina was rusty to begin with. Playing her first match of the tournament after a first round bye and having recovered from a recent bout of chicken pox, she seemed out of sorts early in the match as Prokopenko caught her short repeatedly in the forecourt. The Indian looked sluggish, but slowly established her dominance, moving well, smashing hard and leaving the Russian trailing in her wake. The 21-11 21-17 result was a good workout for bigger battles ahead.
Kashyap played a sensational first game to raise visions of a second-round upset over world No.2 Chen Jin of China. Kashyap matched Chen stroke for stroke, jump-smash for jump-smash and it seemed he would pull off a gigantic upset.
But the tide turned slowly and eventually, Kashyap succumbed to the clinical precision of his opponent. In other second-round action, the highly-rated Jan O Jorgensen of Denmark surprised Korean Park Sung Hwan, but the other top players, including Taufik Hidayat, Peter Gade and Lee Chong Wei — progressed easily.
Kashyap was spectacular against 2008 All England champion Chen Jin. He went full-tilt at the favoured Chinese, trading blows and not flinching one bit. It was Chen who looked stunned, with the Indian retrieving his thunderbolts and delivering some of his own. Interspersed with wristy flicks that deceived the Chinese from time to time, Kashyap shot off with the first game. The second was different though, as Chen worked his way in. A critical point came at 4-2, the rally extending to some 30 strokes or more — Kashyap controlled it and kept Chen at the back, but having earned an opening smashed into the net. The gap widened between the two, and the rest of the match was a formality for the Chinese.
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