PV Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth's inconsistent run continued as they made opening-round exits in the Korea Open Super 500 tournament. Post that, Indian badminton ace HS Prannoy made an early exit from the tournament as he lost his second-round match to Lee Cheuk Yiu of Hong Kong on Thursday.
World number 10 Prannoy, seeded fifth in the tournament, lost 15-21 21-19 18-21 to his opponent ranked eight places below him in a closely-contested match that lasted one hour and six minutes.
Prannoy, the only Indian singles player in the elite top 10, registered a 21-13 21-17 win over Belgium's Julien Carraggi in the opening round. Sindhu, who slipped to world number 17 this week, lost to 32-year-old world no. 22 Pai Yu-Po of Chinese Taipei 18-21 21-10 13-21 in the women's singles opening round. The contest lasted 58 minutes.
Srikanth, on the other hand, squandered a match-point advantage in the second game to go down 21-12 22-24 17-21 to former world no. 1 Kento Momota from Japan. It was Srikanth's 15th loss and 12th successive defeat against the two-time world champion, who has fallen to world number 53 after struggling with form for the last few years.
Sindhu came into the match with a 4-1 lead against Pai but she couldn't curb her errors to go down in the end.
A horrible start, mainly due to Sindhu's unforced errors, saw her fall behind 2-9 at the start of the opening game. The Indian either sprayed the shuttle at the net or hit long to hand over a huge 11-5 advantage to the Taiwanese, who managed to hold on to her lead despite a desperate fightback from Sindhu following an interval. After the change of sides, it was a different Sindhu as she came out all guns blazing, zooming to 9-1 to eventually roar back into the contest with a commanding show.
The decider turned into a thrilling contest as the duo engaged in some good rallies to move neck and neck till 9-9, after Sindhu blew a 4-1 lead. A net error meant Pai took a slender two-point lead at the interval. However, things changed thereafter with Sindhu's game crumbling once again as she kept hitting wide and long, allowing Pai to extend the lead to 18-12.
Sindhu's smash and lift went out as she ended the match with another net error as Pai recorded only her second win over the Indian in six meetings. The BWF World Tour is divided into six levels, namely World Tour Finals, four Super 1000, six Super 750, seven Super 500, and 11 Super 300.
One other category of the tournament, the BWF Tour Super 100 level, also offers ranking points.
In another men's singles match, Priyanshu Rajawat gave a spirited fight against world number four and top-seeded Kodai Naraoka of Japan before losing 14-21 21-18 17-21 in a second-round match that went on for one hour 22 minutes. The Indian women's doubles pair of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand was no match to the second-seeded South Korean opponents Na Ha Baek and Hee So Lee as they lost 11-21 4-21 in just 33 minutes in the second round.
The same was in the case of the Indian mixed doubles pair of Rohan Kapoor and Sikki Reddy as they lost to the fourth-seeded Chinese pair of Zhe Yan Feng and Ping Dong Huang 15-21 12-21 in 35 minutes.
(With PTI inputs)
First Published: Jul 21, 2023 5:54 PM IST
