HS Prannoy, Sai Praneeth reach second round of BWF World Championships 2019

Ace Indian shuttler HS Prannoy kicked off his campaign at the BWF World Championships 2019 on a winning note as he shrugged off a first game defeat to beat Eetu Heino of Finland in the opening round of the tournament on Monday. 

After going down in the first game of the match, the 27-year-old rebounded strongly to eventually seal a 17-21, 21-10, 21-11 win over the Finnish badminton player in a clash that lasted a little less than an hour. 

Prannoy, who has made a comeback from a stomach problem, will now lock horns with 11th seed Lin Dan of China in the second round of the tournament on Tuesday. It is to be noted that the Indian shuttler had beaten Dan at the Indonesia Open in 2018 as well as at the 2015 French Open.

In another men's singles clash, 16th seed B. Sai Praneeth made a much comfortably entry into the second round of the ongoing event as he eased past Jason Anthony Ho-Shue of Canada 21-17, 21-16 in the opening-round clash that lasted just 39 minutes. 

With the win, Praneeth has now set up a clash against Lee Dong Keun of Korea for a place in the pre-quarter-finals. 

Kidambi Srikanth, another Indian in the fray, too made a winning start to his campaign at the BWF World Championships 2019. Srikanth recovered from the first game down to see off Nhat Nguyen 17-21, 21-16, 21-6 in one hour and seven minutes.

Srikanth, who has returned to action after recovering from a knee injury, will now square off with Israel's Misha Zilberman in the second round later today. 

While Indian women's doubles pair of Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy will begin their campaign on Tuesday, Rio Olympics silver-medallist PV Sindhu and London Olympics bronze medallist Saina Nehwal have received a bye in the first round and will kickstart their campaign on Wednesday.