Srikanth, Sameer, Sindhu & Sai fall flat in Denmark
Odense, Oct. 17: World Champion P.V. Sindhu yet again struggled to buck the trend of early exits as she was knocked out of the Denmark Open after a straight-game loss against An Se Young in the second round, here on Thursday.
Fifth seed Sindhu, the Olympic silver medallist, lost 14-21, 17-21 to the Korean in a 40-minute clash at the BWF World Tour Super 750 event.
This was Sindhu’s third successive early exit from a tournament since claiming the World Championship at Basel, Switzerland in August.
The 24-year-old Indian had lost in the second round and first round at the China Open and Korea Open respectively in the last two events.
It turned out to be a dismal day for India as Sameer Verma, Kidambi Srikanth and men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty also went down.
While Sameer lost 12-21, 10-21 to Olympic champion Chen Long of China in men’s singles, Thailand Open champions Satwik and Chirag suffered a 1621, 15-21 defeat against sixth seed Chinese combination of Han Cheng Kai and Zhou Hao Dong.
Srikanth lost to fourth seed Anders Antonsen of Denmark 14-21, 18-21 in the match that lasted 43 minutes.
Srikanth, who had skipped China and Korea Open due to a knee issue, had beaten Antonsen at the 2017 World Championships, but the Danish shuttler has come a long way since then.
While Praneeth was outclassed by two-time World Champion Kento Momota of Japan 6-21 14-21 in yet another dominating show, Sameer lost 12-21 10-21 to Olympic champion Chen Long of China.
Meanwhile, Viktor Axelsen saved four match points beat Japan’s Kenta Nishimoto 21-19, 21-19.