File photo of PV Sindhu© AFP
Indian shuttlers once again endured a poor start after the country’s challenge ended in both women’s and mixed doubles competitions of the Denmark Open Super 750 tournament on Wednesday. Both the Indian pairs is action — Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand (women’s doubles) and B Summeth Reddy and N Sikki Reddy (mixed doubles) — suffered heartbreak three-game defeats in their opening contests. Taking the court first, Treesa and Gayatri squandered a game lead to go down 21-19 17-21 15-21 against fifth seed Malaysia combination of Pearly Tan and Muralitharan Thinaah in women’s doubles opening round match that lasted one hour and 14 minutes.
The odds were always against the world no.21 Indian duo as it enjoyed a inferior 1-5 head-to-head record against their world no.7 opponents from Malaysia. But still Treesa and Gayatri gave their rivals a tough fight before bowing out.
In the mixed doubles too, Sumeeth Reddy and Sikki Reddy too gave away a game’s lead to lose 22-20 19-21 22-24 against Canadian pair of Kevin Lee and Eliana Zhang in one hour and two minutes.
Later on Wednesday, promising Unnati Hooda will be up against USA’s Lauren Lam in her women’s singles opening round match, while Satish Kumar Karunakaran will play Li Yang Su of Chinese Taipei in men’s singles.
Earlier on Tuesday, Lakshya Sen, a 2021 World Championships bronze medallist, also crashed out in the opening round of the men’s singles event after suffering a three-game defeat at the hands of China’s Lu Guang Zu.
If that was not enough, Malvika Bansod and Aakarshi Kashyap too made first round exits from the women’s singles competition.
The only silver lining was double Olympic medallist PV Sindhu as she moved into the second round after her opponent Pai Yu Po of Chinese Taipei retired midway in the second game with the score reading 21-8 13-7 in the Indians’ favour.
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