Suncheon

The third-seed PV Sindhu on Wednesday stormed into the second round of the Korea Open Badminton Championships 2022 after defeating USA's Lauren Lam here at the Palma Stadium.

The two-time Olympic medallist Indian defeated Lauren Lam 21-15, 21-14 in a match that lasted 34 minutes. Sindhu raced toward an 11-6 lead into the first break of the match. The Indian had a slight wobble after the restart, allowing Lam to cut the deficit down to 16-13 but a great recovery from the 2017 Korea Open champion saw her finishing strongly to go a game up.

The American offered no easy points to Sindhu in Game 2 as the Indian world No. 7 was leading by just a point at the mid-game break. With the game balanced on a knife's edge at 15-14, PV Sindhu shifted gears and he took six points on the trot to mark a sudden end to the affair. The Indian, who is off to round 2 of the BWF Super 500 event, will now meet Japan's Aya Ohori.

Later, former world No. 1 Kidambi Srikanth defeated Malaysian shuttler, Daren Liew by 22-20, 21-11 in a match that lasted for 40 minutes. Once trailing 15-18, Srikanth managed to mount a comeback and win the first game 22-20. The fifth seed then had little trouble dispatching Daren Liew in the second. The Indian shuttler will now face Israel's Misha Zilberman in the second round.

READ ALSO: Korea Open: India's Lakshya Sen makes a winning start

Earlier, Indian men's doubles pair M.R. Arjun/Dhruv Kapila received a walkover in the first round of the men's doubles event after South Korea's Ba Da Kim/ Hee Young Park pulled out. The Indian duo now may come up against Indonesian second seeds Mohammad Ahsan/Hendra Setiawan, former world champions in round 2