London: Indian shuttler Parupalli Kashyap scored a dominating straight games win over Vietnam’s Tien Minh Nguyen on Tuesday to join compatriot Saina Nehwal in the knock-out stage of the singles competition in the Olympics.
The 21st ranked Kashyap outplayed his rival, ranked 11 places above him, 21-9, 21-14 in the second and final Group D match of the men’s singles event.
By virtue of the win, Kashyap finished on top of Group D, having beaten Belgium’s Tan Yuhan in an earlier game.
Saina, ranked fifth in the world, also had little difficulty in disposing of the challenge of Belgium’s Lianne Tan 21-4, 21-14 in a Group E women’s singles match late on Monday.
Against his higher ranked opponent, Kashyap played aggressively right from the word go and never let the Vietnamese shuttler settle down.
Kashyap set up the points beautifully by opening the court and executed the winners with ease.
The match featured long rallies with both players playing some fierce flat shots, but it was the Indian who scored points consistently.
Minh tried to claw his way back in the second game but Kasyhap never let the momentum slip and clinched the issue with a cross-court smash to the left of his rival.
As expected, Kashyap was delighted with the easy win.
“I expected to win but not that easily. Not that it was an easy game – we had some long rallies and when he gets into his rhythm he can be very dangerous.” Kashyap said.
Talking about his rival Minh, Kashyap said he was not an easy player to beat. “Once he gets two or three points in a row he’s very dangerous, so I really tried to keep it to two points only. If he gets five or six he can run away with the game. I trained really hard for this competition and I think I won because of my fitness levels,” he said.
Among other Indian shuttlers in the fray, Commonwealth Games gold medallist pair of Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponappa also set the Wembley Arena ablaze when they stunned world number 10 Yu Chin Chien and Wen Hsing Cheng of Taiwan 25-23, 16-21, 21-18 in a Group B round-robin match of the women’s doubles late on Monday night.
They then had to play their last group stage game on Tuesday, which they won comfortably in straight games over Lei Yao and Shinta Mulia Sari of Singapore, but still failed to enter the quarterfinals.
The Commonwealth Games gold medallists saw off the world number 13 Singapore pair 21-16, 21-15 in a 34-minute match at the Wembley Arena here.
However, the Indian pair ended up in the number three position in the group based on the difference between points won and lost in all matches after tying with Chinese Taipei pair of Wen Hsing Cheng and Yu Chin Chien and Japanese combo of Mizuki Fujii and Reika Kakiiwa.
The world No. 20 Indian combo opened up a 11-5 lead in the first game and extended it to 18-10. The Singapore pair tried to come back and made it 19-14, before Jwala and Ashwini earned the game point.
Yao and Sari saved a couple of game points but the Indian pair didn’t make any more mistake and pocketed the first game comfortably.
In the second game, the Indian pair surged ahead to a 9-1 lead and although their rivals scripted a fightback, Jwala and Ashwini staved off the challenge to comfortably seal the issue but still failed to enter the knockout stage.
In the mixed doubles match, Jwala Gutta and V Diju went down to the Korean pair of Jung Eun Ha and Young Dae Lee, who pulled off a comfortable 21-15 21-15 victory in a tussle that lasted 27 minutes.
The Indian duo, who were already out of contention for a pre-quarters spot, could not match the Koreans as they were far superior in all disciplines. (PTI)