RETURNING from a prolonged injury lay-off, PV Sindhu began the new season on a winning note along with the formidable men’s doubles pair of Chirag Shetty and Satwik sairaj Rankireddy as they entered the second round of the Malaysia Open Super 1000 badminton tournament there on Wednesday. The 30-year-old former world champion, who had opted to withdraw from all BWF World Tour events in October last year to recover from a foot injury, defeated Chinese Taipei’s Sung Shuo Yun 21-14, 22-20 in a 51- minutes showdown of the women’ssingles opening round.

 

The 18th-ranked Sindhu showed no signs of discomfort as she over came the lower-ranked Sung for the second time to take her head-to-head to 2-0 and set up a Round of 16 clash with world No 9 Tomoka Miyazaki of Japan. Miyazaki, a 2022 world junior champion, advanced after her 10th-ranked opponent, Sim Yu Jin of South Korea, retired hurt when the Japanese was leading 21-19, 1-2. Sindhu has a 1-1record against Miyazaki, whom she beat in the 2025 China Masters during their last meeting.

 

Later, Satwik and Chirag, the former World No 1 pair, saw off Chinese Taipei’s Yang Po-Hsuan and Lee Jhe-Hue 21-13, 21-15 in 35 minutes to also enter the pre quarter-finals. The Asian Games champions, who had reached the semi-finals of the season-ending BWF World Tour Finals in December,will face Malaysia’s Junaidi Arif and Roy King Yap.

 

The mixed doubles pair of Dhruv Kapila and Tanisha Crasto, ranked 17th in the world, however, bowed out in the Round of 32 after losing to the lower-ranked American duo of Presley Smith and Jennie Gai 15-21, 21-18, 15- 21 following a hard-fought 56- minute contest.

 

Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand, who won their second Syed Modi International Super 300 crown inDecember,put up a fight before losing 9-21, 23- 21, 19-21 in a 66-minute battle against Indonesia’s Febriana Dwipuji Kusuma and Meilysa Trias Puspita sari. The Panda sisters --Rutu parna and Sweta parna -- also faced defeat, going down 11-21, 9-21 in a lop-sided contest against second seeded Malaysians Pearly Tan and Thinaah Muralitharan. Earlier, Sindhu looked in fine fettle as she took an early 6-2 lead and did not look back, over powering her opponent in the opening game.

 

However, the second gameturned out to a fiercely-contested one with Sindhu trailing 4-11at one stage before finally levelling it at 13-all. But the unrelenting 28-yearold Sung kept pushing and took a three-point lead at 17-14 before the Indian again displayed her fighting qualities to claw back and level at 17-all. At 20-all, Sindhu grabbed the decisive last two points to win the contest. 

 

In the doubles competition,Satwik and Chirag came into the match with an overwhelming 6-0 record and the Indian duo stamp edits authority to lead from start to finish in the opening game. TheTaiwanese duo putupa better show in the second game,staying close till 12-12 when Satwik and Chirag changed gears and closed out the match.