Sindhu crashes out; Srikanth, Sameer make quarter-finals

KOWLOON,HONGKONG:OLYMPIC silver medallist PV Sindhu suffered an unexpected loss in the second round but Kidambi Srikanth and Sameer Verma advanced to the quarter-finals to keep India’s flag flying at the Hong Kong Open World Tour Super 500 event on Thursday. World No 4 Sindhu, who was seeded third here, was shown the door by Hyun Ji Sung of Korea 24-26, 20-22 in a 59-minute duel.

With Sindhu’s exit, India’s challenge ended in the women’s singles after Saina Nehwal had made a first round exit. But India’s men’s singles shuttlers had a good day in office with Srikanth and Sameer making progress in contrasting fashion. Fourth seeded Srikanth, who had claimed silver at this year’s Commonwealth Games, had to dig deep in his reservoir to outwit fellow Indian HS Prannoy 18-21, 30-29, 21-18 in a thriller.

Srikanth will face either Japan’s Kenta Nishimoto or Thailand’s Kantaphon Wangcharoen in the last eight.

Sameer, however, qualified for the quarter-finals after his formidable opponent, Olympic champion Chen Long pulled out of the competition due to injury. He will face either Denmark’s Hans-kristian Solberg Vittinghus or local hope Lee Cheuk Yiu on Friday.

However, the mixed doubles pairing of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Ashwini Ponnappa lost 17-21, 11-21 to Chinese Taipei’s Lee Yang and Hsu Ya Ching to bow out of the tournament. Men’s doubles pair of B Sumeeth Reddy and Manu Attri also failed to clear the second round hurdle, losing to Chinese Taipei combination of Jhe-huei Lee and Yang Lee 16-21, 15-21.

Earlier, the match between the two trainees of the Pulella Gopichand Academy turned out to be a pulsating contest as former world no 1 Srikanth did the catch up act with Prannoy enjoying the early spoils.

Prannoy, who had defeated Srikanth at the senior National final last year, moved neck-andneck till 9-9 before the former jumped to a 14-10 lead. Srikanth clawed back at 15-15 before Prannoy again moved ahead to secure the opening game.

The second game was a cliffhanger as the duo played out of their skin before Srikanth managed to grab the upper limit of 30 points first to pocket the game and roar back into the contest.

In the decider, Srikanth surged to a 11-4 lead at the interval. Prannoy caught up at 16-16 before Srikanth again moved ahead to seal the contest.