Indian badminton players led by the ace shuttler PV Sindhu had a mixed start to the $ 700,000 China Open in Fuzhou on Tuesday.
While it was curtains for the Olympic silver medalist Sindhu in the opening round, India’s doubles campaign was off to a good start as the men’s team and the mixed team won their respective matches.
World No. 6 Sindhu, who has been struggling to find form, was knocked out in the opening round after a shocking defeat to the World No. 42 Pai Yu Po of Chinese Taipei. Sindhu lost 13-21, 21-18, 19-21 to Pai in a match that lasted for 74 minutes.
PV Sindhu was rusty right from the very start as she lost the first game without even putting up a fight to her lower ranked opponent.
The Taiwanese player looked in great touch as she managed a 3-0 lead early in the opening game. Although Sindhu fought back to make it 4-4, Pai was quick to extend her lead to 11-5 at the break. Sindhu saved five game points before Pai sealed the opening game 21-13.
Sindhu came back stronger in the second game as she managed to open up a 7-4 lead and then maintained it at the interval. The 24-year old eventually ended up winning the second game 21-18.
In the final game though, Pai looked more focused of the two as she came out all guns blazing and dominated the proceedings early on.
Sindhu was trailing at the mid-break and she tried to reduce the deficit as she scored nine consecutive points to catch up with Pai, but the Taiwanese managed to held on to a 15-12 lead.
Sindhu once again showed her class and managed six points on the trot to move to 18-15. However, four straight points gave the lead back to Pai and she made the most of it by taking the final game 21-19.
Meanwhile in men’s singles, H.S. Prannoy, who recently recovered from dengue and was making a comeback after two months, lost 17-21, 18-21 to Denmark’s Rasmus Gemke in the opening round.
However, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy gave the Indian camp something to smile about. Along with Chirag Shetty, Satwik defeated the American pair of Phillip Chew and Ryan Chew 21-9, 21-15 in the men’s doubles and with Ashwini Ponappa by his side, he defeated Canada’s Joshua Hurlburt-Yu and Josephine in the mixed doubles event.
