World Badminton Championships: Kidambi Srikanth, Sameer Verma storm into second round

Indian shuttlers Kidambi Srikanth and Sameer Verma started their campaign at the World Badminton Championships with commanding straight-game victories in the men’s singles event on Day 1 in Glasgow on Monday.

The unseeded Sergey Sirant of Russia was no match for the red-hot Srikanth as the eighth seed won the first-round match 21-13, 21-12 in just 28 minutes to enter the next stage. Srikanth will take on France’s Lucas Corvee in the second round on Tuesday.

In-form Srikanth started the contest in a rampaging manner and with a blink of an eye took a 6-1 lead in the first game, before going into the break at 11-6. Soon the lead widened to 15-7, but Sergey won few consecutive points to reduce the gap but it was too little too late. Srikanth pocketed the game 21-13. The second game saw both the players exchanging points in the initial stage to remain at 2-2, but Srikanth soon made it 9-2 and took the break at 11-5. Srikanth maintained a healthy six-point lead as he raced to 15-9, before sealing the game 21-12.

Sameer was leading 17-4 in the second game, after winning the first 21-8, when his opponent Pablo Abian of Spain retired from the contest on medical ground. The match lasted 27 minutes.