After showing his dominance over Chinese Taipei's Chou Tien Chen, Srikanth faced a setback against Guang Zu which resulted in another Round of 16 defeat for India's PV. end, but Sindhu produced another outstanding performance as she cruised to a three-set win over American Beiwen Zhang to reach the women's singles quarterfinals. Two-time Olympic champion Sindhu overcame an early turn of the match to beat the world no. 10 Zhang 13-21 21-10 21-14 advanced to her first quarter-final of the season in her first BWF tour tournament since recovering from a knee ailment.
The match will be a litmus test for the Indian, who is aiming for a third medal at the Paris Games, as the world XI will face either Denmark's Line Christophersen or Olympic champion and second seed Chen Yu Fei of China.
After showing his dominance over Chinese Taipei's Chou Tien Chen on Wednesday, Srikanth ran into trouble again, this time against Guang Zu, and lost in the round of 16. This will bother him as he had a perfect 5-0 record against the Chinese coming into the match. After a 78-minute battle, the former world number one Chinese team lost 21-19, 12-21, 20-22.
Sindhu opened the women's singles with a cross-court winner, but Zhang put up a defensive fight and dragged the Indian into lengthy rallies that were mostly controlled by high serves and clears. Sindhu found it difficult to cope with Zhang leading 11-7 and 14-9 as the Indian made too many careless errors as she tried to get to the back line.
Zhang's lifts kept finding lines, but Sindhu kept missing. The American quickly restored a five-point lead at 16–11 before securing eight game points. Sindhu once again rubbed the net and transformed the Chinese.
In the second set, Zhang took a 3-0 lead thanks to some great drops that demonstrated her good stroke control. When a poor return was made close to the net, Sindhu capitalized to take a 6-4 lead after leveling the scores at 4-4. Zhang began to worry as Sindhu began to condition the rallies to go to a 9–5 plan. At halftime, the Indians had an 11:7 advantage. In flat exchanges, Srikanth held his ground and produced some delicious forehand returns to lead 17–14, but Guang Zu leveled the scores thanks to his errors.
The Indians closed the gap to 19-18 thanks to a backhand kill, but the Chinese extended the lead once again to 19-19. But to win the first game, Srikanth responded with a massive smash before launching another cross-court smash.
