Saina ousted from All England Championship

World No. 3 Srikanth Kidambi too had a rough first round match, recovering from a lop-sided opening game to struggle past France’s Brice Leverdez 7-21, 2114, 22-20.

Sai Praneeth also lost in the men’s singles first round.

Birmingham, March 14: Star shuttlers P. V. Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth prevailed in tough first-round battles but Saina Nehwal exited from the prestigious All England Championship after suffering a straightgame defeat against World No. 1 and defending champion Tai Tzu-Ying, here on Wednesday.

Saina, who had reached the finals in the 2015 edition, couldn’t match up to the precision and athleticism of Tai Tzu, going down 14-21, 18-21.

World No. 3 Srikanth recovered from a lopsided opening game to struggle past 23rd ranked Brice Leverdez of France 7-21, 21-14, 22-20 while Olympic and world championship silver medallist Sindhu staved off a stiff challenge from Thailand’s Pornpawee Chochuwong to prevail 20-22, 21-17, 21-9.

Meanwhile, Singapore Open champion B. Sai Praneeth squandered an opening game advantage to go down 21-13, 15-21, 1121 to fifth seed Korean Son Wan Ho.

Among others, Ashwini Ponnappa and N. Sikki Reddy lost 14-21 13-21 to second seeded Japanese combo of Misaki Matsutomo & Ayaka Takahashi while Jakkampudi Meghana and Poorvisha Ram went down 14-21, 11-21 to fifth seeds Shiho Tanaka & Koharu Yonemoto in the women’s doubles.

The men’s doubles pair of Manu Attri & B. Sumeeth Reddy also suffered a 20-22, 12-21 loss against English combo of Marcus Ellis and Chris Langride to crash out.

However, in the mixed doubles, Pranav Jerry Chopra & Sikki Reddy defeated Germany’s Marvin Emil Seidel & Linda Efler 21-19, 21-13.

Srikanth will now square off against either Huang Yuxiang or England’s Rajiv Ouseph, while Sindhu faces the winner of the match between Beiwen Zhang and Nitchaon Jindapol.

Saina blew a 16-11 advantage in the second game to bow out of tournament.

Sindhu, on the other hand, blew a 11-4 advantage in the opening game as Pornpawee fought back to catch up at 14-14. She went to the 20-18 game point advantage before Sindhu clawed back but in the end it was the Thai shuttler who pocketed the game. Jolted by the reversal, Sindhu surged to a 146 and 15-7 lead in the next two games and didn’t lose control despite some spirited fight by Pornpawee.