Hong Kong Open badminton: Sindhu loses to unseeded opponent; Prannoy, Sen advance

India’s two-time Olympic medallist shuttler PV Sindhu bowed out, whereas HS Prannoy and Lakshya Sen earned hard-fought wins to advance within the Hong Kong Open Super 500 event right here on Wednesday.

Sindhu, who had reached the BWF World Championships quarterfinals final month, misplaced the ladies’s singles round-of-32 contest 21-15, 16-21, 19-21 to unseeded Danish shuttler Line Christophersen.

However, Prannoy, ranked thirty fourth on the earth, humbled 14th ranked Lu Guang Zu of China 21-17, 21-14 in 44 minutes, whereas Sen obtained his marketing campaign going with a gruelling 22-20, 16-21, 21-15 win to safe a spot within the males’s singles pre-quarterfinals.

Kiran George additionally secured a spot within the males’s singles last-16 getting the higher of Singapore’s higher-ranked Jia Heng Jason Teh 21-16, 21-11 in 34 minutes.

World No. 31 Ayush Shetty overcame a stiff problem from lower-ranked Chinese-Taipei shuttler Su Li Yang 15-21, 21-19, 21-13 in barely over an hour to safe a spot within the last-16 in males’s singles.

For Sindhu, this was her first loss to the 25-year-old Christophersen in six outings, coming at a time when the Indian star was starting to rediscover her type after early exits on the Swiss Open and Japan Open earlier this 12 months.

Sindhu took an early 3-1 lead within the first recreation earlier than her opponent equalised 5-all. Leading 14-13, Sindhu upped her recreation permitting Christophersen only one level earlier than taking the opener.

The second recreation noticed the Indian main 13-12 earlier than errors cropped up in her recreation as she gave away 5 factors on the trot.

The decider was a battle of nerves with each gamers going neck and neck until 19-all earlier than two decisive factors for Christophersen ended Sindhu’s marketing campaign.

The ladies’s doubles pair of Rutaparna Panda and Swetaparna Panda received their round-of-32 match towards Hong Kong’s Oi Ki Vanessa Pang and Sum Yau Wong 17-21, 9-21 in simply 28 minutes, whereas the Chinese Taipei duo of Chen Cheng Kuan and Hsu Yin-Hui obtained the higher of Dhruv Kapil and Tanisha Crasto 16-21, 11-21 in 31 minutes.

India’s Rakshitha Ramraj will play her round-of-32 singles match towards fifth-seeded former world champion from Thailand Ratchanok Intanon, whereas the blended doubles duo of Rohan Kapoor and Ruthvika Gadde will tackle the second-seeded Chinese pair of Feng Yan Zhe and Huang Dong Ping.

On Tuesday, India’s high males’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty had overcame Taiwan’s Chiu Hsiang Chieh and Wang Chi-Lin of their opening spherical.