The 26th World Badminton Championships are taking place in Velva, Spain. In the women’s singles, defending champion PV Sindhu of India advanced to the second round, beating Martina Repiska (Slovakia) 21-7, 21-9 in the second round to advance to the third round. It took Sindh just 24 minutes to get this win. Sindhu will next face Thailand’s Bournemouth Sochwong. It is noteworthy that Sindhu lost to the same Sochuwong in the league match of the World Tour Finals last week.
In the men’s singles, former ‘Number One’ Srikanth of India defeated Li Shi Peng (China) 15-21, 21-18, 21-17 to reach the third round. Similarly, young Indian Lakshaya Sen fought back to beat Kenta Nishimoto (Japan) 22-20, 15-21, 21-18. This game for thrilling lasted 1 hour 22 minutes. In the second round of the men’s doubles, India’s Chadwick Sairaj Rangireddy and Chirac Shetty defeated China’s Lee Jae Hooi and Yang Po Huan 27-25, 21-17 in a straight set.
World number one and Olympic champion Victor Axelsen (Denmark), who was on the verge of winning the title, suffered a shock defeat in his opening match. He was defeated by 22nd seed Lo Qian Yew (Singapore) 14-21, 21-9, 21-6. In this way, Lo Kian avenged his defeat in the recent Indonesian Open final.