India’s Singles Campaign In China Open Comes To An End

It was curtains for India’s singles campaign at the ongoing China Open after Parupalli Kashyap and B. Sai Praneeth were knocked out of the tournament losing their respective matches on Thursday.

Kashyap, who was up against Denmark’s Victor Axelsen, suffered a straight-game loss as he went down down 13-21 19-21 in the men’s singles second-round in just 43 minutes.

This was the second time that Kashyap, a former Commonwealth Games champion, was shown the door by the world number six this year. Kashayap was sent home by Axelsen in the semifinals of India open as well.

Later in the day, Praneeth went down fighting in a difficult 2nd round clash against the 4th seed Anders Antonsen 20-22, 22-20, 16-21. Sai Praneeth came back strongly in the second game after losing a closely contested first game 20-22.

Praneeth, who won the bronze medal at the world meet in Basel, did not give up as he took the second game 22-20 to force a decider.

However, Antonsen proved too much for Praneeth eventually as he took the decider 21-16 to draw curtains over India’s singles campaign.

Earlier in the day, the mixed doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Ashwini Ponnappa crashed out of the tournament after losing their second round match 21-23, 16-21 against the Korean pair of Seo Seung Jae and Chae Yujung.

India’s men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty saved the day for India as they reached the quarterfinals of the China Open winning their round of 16 clash against the Japanese pair of Hiroyuki Endo-Yuta Watanabe.

In a grueling match that lasted more than an hour, the Indian pair outplayed Hiroyuki Endo-Yuta Watanabe 21-18, 21-23, 21-11. 

India’s challenge in women’s singles has already ended as PV Sindhu and Saina Nehwal, both were knocked out in the first round.

Sindhu was defeated by World No. 42 Pai Yu Po 13-21, 21-18, 19-21, while Saina was ousted by Yan Yan Cai.

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