French Open: Sindhu, Srikanth crash out

PARIS: Olympic medallist PV Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth crashed out in the quarter-finals of the French Open after suffering straight-game defeats in their respective matches as India’s campaign ended in the singles events at the BWF World Tour Super 750 tournament here.

Third seed Sindhu looked a pale shadow of herself as she lost 13-21, 16-21 in 40 minutes against seventh seed He Bingjiao of China on Friday night.

It was Sindhu’s second consecutive loss at the hands of the Chinese shuttler this year after her straight-game defeat in Indonesia Open in July.

Earlier in the day, Saina Nehwal failed to crack the code of top seed Tai Tzu Ying of Chinese Taipei, losing 20-22, 11-21 in another quarter-final encounter. Fifth seed Srikanth gave a good account of himself but eventually lost steam against top seed Kento Momota of Japan. Srikanth fought hard in both the games but failed to reach the finishing line, losing 16-21 19-21 to slump to his seventh consecutive and fifth straight loss this year against the Japanese opponent.

Srikanth’s last defeat against Momota came in the semi-finals of the Denmark Open last week.

But there was some good news for India in the men’s doubles event as the unseeded pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty progressed to the semi-finals after getting the better of compatriots Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy 21-17, 21-11.

SHARMA FINDS A PAR ROUND, AS FINAU LEAD

SHANGHAI: India’s Shubhankar Sharma registered a modest round of even par 72 in the third round of the WGC-HSBC Champions here on Saturday. Sharma was 80-80 for the first two days.

Tony Finau raced to a threeshot lead with a round of 70.