Sindhu loses in quarter-finals of Indonesia Masters
JAKARTA:WORLD champion shuttler PV Sindhu suffered a quarter-final defeat at the hands of Sayaka Takahashi of Japan in a closelyfought women’s singles contest to bring curtains on the Indian challenge in the Indonesia Masters here on Thursday.
Sindhu frittered away a onegame lead to lose 21-16, 16-21, 19-21 in a thrilling quarter-final that lasted one hour and six minutes. The world No 6 Sindhu had a 4-2 head-to-head record against the 14th ranked Japanese before Thursday’s match.
Takahashi had defeated another top Indian, Saina Nehwal, in the second round.
World championships bronze medallist B Sai Praneeth, Kidambi Srikanth and Sourabh Verma crashed out of the tournament in the second round on Wednesday.
Indians thus continued their poor form after making early exits in the Malaysia Masters last week. Sindhu and Saina had reached the quarterfinals in Kuala Lumpur but none of the men’s singles players could cross the second round.
CHIRAGH BEST INDIAN IN SINGAPORE OPEN
SENTOSA,SINGAPORE: Indian golfer Chiragh Kumar was impressive off the tee and he added some good putting on the back nine to bring home a card of three-under 68 in the first round of the SMBC Singapore Open on Thursday.
After being four-under through 14 holes, he ended with 68, his second best round on Asian Tour since August last year. Chiragh was the best placed at tied-ninth among the 13 Indians who teed off at the $1 million event. Among other Indians, Ajeetesh Sandhu (69) was tied-15th, while Aman Raj and Khalin Joshi shot one-under 70 each to be T-33. Rashid Khan and Udayan Mane were also one-under but had four and seven holes still to play.
SHUBHANKAR SHOOTS 71 IN ABU DHABI
ABU DHABI: Shubhankar Sharma grinded it out for most part of the day to finish with a one-under 71 in the first round of the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship.
The 23-year-old Sharma was at two-under through 14 holes, before a couple of missed putts from inside five feet gave him bogeys and a lot of grief. In between, there was a sweetener with a 25-foot birdie on the eighth, his 17thhole of the day. He was tied-49th alongside Wade Ormsby, Danny Willett,tommy Fleetwood and Patrick Cantlay.