India's badminton star Saina Nehwal made short work of Soraya De Visch Eijbergen of the Netherlands to storm into the round of 16 of the BWF World Championships, at Basel, Switzerland.
Saina took just 33 minutes to dismiss Eijbergen 21-10 21-11.
Kidambi Srikanth, on the other hand, came back from a game down to outplay Misha Zilberman of Israel 13-21, 21-13, 21-16. The world no. 10 took the match into the decider and won the decider quite comfortably to seal the win in 58 minutes.
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Though Saina looked a bit rusty at the start, she soon went into the break with a six-point lead. Seeded eighth, the Indian shuttler overpowered Eijbergen with her cross-court smashes and drop shots, taking the first game 21-10.
Saina continued with her fine deceptive shots and long rallies to race to a 11-6 lead at break in the second game. She closed out the match off her second match point to set up a date with Denmark’s Mia Blichfeldt.
Srikanth, meanwhile, after losing the first game, came back strongly to go into the break in the second game with a four-point advantage. He managed to keep the lead over Zilberman and took the second game with an identical scoreline as the first.
In the decider, Srikanth raced to an early 5-0 lead. Zilberman looked down and out at 6-16, but he won four straight points. At 20-12, the Israeli shuttler saved four match points but Srikanth managed to convert the fifth one and move into the round of 16.
Among others, Indian pair of Manu Attri and B. Sumeeth Reddy suffered a 16-21 19-21 loss to sixth seeded Chinese combination of Han Cheng Kai and Zhou Hao Dong in men's doubles.
Commonwealth Games bronze medallist Ashwini Ponnappa and N. Sikki Reddy also crashed out after losing 20-22 16-21 to seventh seeds Du Yue and Li Yin Hui of China.
