Sindhu, Jayaram, Srikanth enter quarterfinals

Basel, March 4: Indian shuttlers P V Sindhu, Kidambi Srikanth and Ajay Jayaram had a good day in office as they advanced to the quarterfinals of singles competition at the Swiss Open Super 300 badminton tournament here on Thursday.
Indian mixed doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Ashwini Ponnappa also progressed to the quarterfinals, continuing their recent good run in international badminton.
World champion P V Sindhu hardly broke any sweat, beating USA’s Iris Wang 21-13 21-14 in the women’s singles competition, while former world no 1 Srikanth notched up a 21-10 14-21 21-14 victory over world no 50 Thomas Rouxel of France and Jayaram eked out a hard-fought 21-18 17-21 21-13 against third seeded Dane Rasmus Gemke in their respective men’s singles second round matches. Satwik and Ashwini, who reached the semifinals at Toyota Thailand Open Super 1000 in January, defeated the Indonesian combination of Rinov Rivaldy and Pitha Haningtyas Mentari 21-18 21-16 in a mixed doubles second-round match. While second seed Sindhu meets fifth seeded Thai Busanan Ongbamrungphan next, while fourth seed Srikanth, who had won the title in 2015, will face sixth seeded Thai Kantaphon Wangcha-roen and Jayaram will be up against another Thai Kunlavut Vitidsarn in the last-eight stage. (PTI)