Sydney: India’s Sanith Dayanand entered the men’s singles main draw of the Australian Open badminton tournament by winning his qualifying matches here on Tuesday. In the qualifying round, Dayanand, seeded fourth, first easily defeated local player Karono 21-17, 21-15 and then defeated Malaysia’s Ming Hong Lim 21-9, 21-16 to secure a place in the main draw. In the main draw, Sanith has to face China’s Hu Zhe An in the first round. Manraj Singh, however, crashed out of the competition with an 11-21, 18-21 defeat against Malaysia’s Iogen Ivey in his second qualification match.
In the men’s doubles main draw, the journey of the Indian pair of Achyutaditya Rao and P Arjun Reddy ended in the first round itself when they suffered a 15-21, 15-21 defeat against the Australian pair of Kanki Igawa and Oi Yee Hearn.
The main round matches in singles will begin from Wednesday in which two-time Olympic medalist PV Sindhu will lead India’s challenge.
Third seed Sindhu will start her campaign against Peru’s Ines Lucia Castillo. If Sindhu wins, then in the next round she will face the winner of the first round match between fellow Indian Isharani Barua and China’s Han Qian Xi. In women’s singles, Tanvi Sharma will face fifth seed Chiu Pin Chien of Chinese Taipei while Malvika Bansod will take on Malaysia’s Goh Jin Wei.
Anmol Kharb will have to face a tough challenge from former world champion and fourth seed Nojomi Okuhara of Japan in her very first match. Akarshi Kashyap will face Wong Ling Ching of Malaysia while Tanya Hemant will face Ishika Jaiswal of America.
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