Sindhu kicks off Olympic campaign with an easy win

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Reigning world badminton champion PV Sindhu opened her Olympic campaign with an easy win over Israel's Ksenia Polikarpova in the women's singles group match on Sunday.</p>
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The 26-year-old Indian, seeded sixth, crushed the 58th ranked Polikarpova 21-7 21-10 in a one-sided opening match. She will now play Hong Kong's world number 34 Cheung Ngan Yi in the next match of the group. </p>
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<strong>Also read:</strong>  <a href="https://www.indianarrative.com/culture-news/first-win-for-indian-women-paddlers-at-olympics-since-104295.html">First win for Indian women paddlers at Olympics since 1992</a></p>
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Rio Games silver medallist Sindhu started on an attacking note to move ahead quickly.  She used her trademark straight and cross court smashes and drops to beat the Israeli, who made her share of unforced errors as well.</p>
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Sindhu sealed the first game in her favour when Polikarpova missed a shot. Polikarpova, who was playing with a strapped knee, struggled with her strokes as Sindhu took a 9-3 lead in the second game and then entered the mid-interval with a huge seven-point lead.</p>
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She resumed her attacking style after the break to take 13 match points. The Indian squandered three of them before Polikarpova once again sent the shuttle wide to bring the match to an end.</p>
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On Saturday, the Indian men's doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty shocked the world number duo of Yang Lee and Chi-Lin Wang of Chinese Taipei in a thrilling group A match.</p>
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However, B Sai Praneeth jeopardised his qualification to the knockout stage after going down to world number 47, Misha Zilberman of Israel, in a men's singles group D match.</p>