Tokyo Olympics: PV Sindhu beats Cheung in straight games, enters pre-quarterfinals

Reigning silver medalist PV Sindhu continues her winning run as she got the better of  21-9, 21-16 against Hong Kong's Cheung Ngan Yi during their group stage Tokyo Olympics 2020 women's singles badminton clash on Wednesday.

By the virtue of this win, PV Sindhu has now made it to the Round of 16 of the women's singles event and would be oozing with confidence as she looks forward to making it to the medal rounds.

Tokyo Olympics 2020: PV Sindhu outclasses Cheung Ngan Yi

PV Sindhu dominated her Hong Kong rival right from the word 'Go' with a 12-point lead in the first set which she won convincingly. However, the Rio Olympics silver medalist had to sweat a little bit in the second round as Cheung Ngan Yi overhead deception and cross drops to mid-court that kept the reigning world champion at bay and when the scoreline read 10-10, it seemed as if the Hong Kong shuttler would gain complete control of the proceedings but it was not to be as Sindhu showed great enthusiasm and struck back when it mattered the most as Cheng was could not match up to her and ended up suffering a defeat in straight sets.

With this win, PV Sindhu has successfully qualified for the knockouts where the risks are high but the reward is higher but, the ace shuttler cannot afford to slip from hereon. PV Sindhu had an outstanding run at the 2016 edition of the quadrennial event before going down to Spain's Carolina Marin in the gold medal match.  The shuttler is now aiming for her second successive Olympic medal and would be eager to keep her winning run intact. But,  more importantly, she would be hoping to go one better and clinch the gold this time around.

At the same time, PV Sindhu is also the last hope in Indian badminton speaking about the ongoing Tokyo Olympics along with Sai Praneet in the men's singles. On Tuesday, the men's doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Ranikreddy and Chirag Shetty bowed out despite winning their final group game 21-17,21-19 against the British pair of Ben Lane and Sean Vendy.