Guangzhou, November 16: Indian women shuttlers had mixed fortunes as they won two matches and lost one on the opening day of the Asian Games Badminton tournament here today.
Aditi Mutatkar won her first round match by beating Thilini Jayasinghe 21-11, 21-19.
She next meets Japan’s Eriko Hirose tomorrow.
The doubles team of Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponappa Machimanda entered the pre-quarterfinals after one of their Thai opponents got injured and decided to concede the match.
Jwala-Ashwini, who became the first doubles pair from India to win a gold medal in the recently-held Commonwelath Games, had won the first game 21-13 and were leading in the second when their opponents gave up.
However the second women’s doubles team of Aparna Balan and Prajakta Sawant lost their first round match to Malaysia’s Merylen Poauleng NG and Khe Wei Woon in straight games 17-21, 7-21.
In the men’s doubles event, the pair of Akshay Dewalkar and Arun Vishnu Sivarajan got a walkover in their round of 32 as did Arvind Bhat in the singles event.
Both the men’s singles and doubles pair were to meet Sri Lankan players in their respective matches.
Badminton may be China’s favourtie sport but all eyes will be on world number three Saina Nehwal when she kick-starts her campaign in the women’s singles event tomorrow evening in the Tianhe Gymnasium.
She will take on Malaysia’s Lydia Cheah in the pre-quarterfinal match.
The Indian tennis star is seeded second in the Asian Games and had received a bye in the first round.
The Hyderabad shuttler is likely to meet sixth seed Pui Yin Yip of Hong Kong in the quarterfinals and could have a possible match against third seeded Shixian Wang of China in the semis.
If all goes well, then she could encounter the world number one Xin Wang also from China in the finals.
Saina is yet to win any match against either of the Chinese players. She has lost once to Shixian and twice to Xin.
This is the Indian badminton sensation’s second Asian Games.
She had lost in the pre-quarterfinals to Hong Kong’s Wang Chen last time.
However, the last four years have seen Saina become better and better and attain glorious heights, climbing to her best ranking of world number two earlier this year after winning three back-to-back Super Series titles.
However, chief national coach Pullela Gopichand said, ”The going will be tough in the Asian Games. But she (Saina) is fit and playing well.
”The good thing is that she has played back to back tournaments earlier and if there is any player who can overcome physical and mental tiredness then its Saina as she is mentally very strong,” he added.
The former All England Open champion also said the young shuttler was prepared for the challenge of the Asian Games.
”After the Commonwealth Games, she took only one day off and got back to training. She did not attend any felicitations.” Gopichand described team India’s performance today as OK.
”The main matches are yet to come.” He also said some Indian players had injuries-like Aditi who is playing with an injured calf.
Other women’s singles player Trupti Murgunde is also returning home because of ankle injury.
–Agencies