Defending Champion PV Sindhu Crashes Out In Second Round

By FnF Correspondent | PUBLISHED: 24, Mar 2023, 19:42 pm IST | UPDATED: 24, Mar 2023, 19:43 pm IST

PV Sindhu, a double Olympic medallist, failed to defend her Swiss Open Super 300 badminton title as she was defeated by unseeded Putri Kusuma Wardani of Indonesia in a thrilling three-game women's singles second-round match. Despite being seeded fourth and ranked ninth in the world, Sindhu was stunned 15-21 21-12 18-21 by the 38th ranked Wardani in their first-ever face-off at the international level on Thursday night.

However, the second-seeded men's pairing of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty kept India's hopes alive by entering the quarterfinals with a hard-fought 12-21 21-17 28-26 win over the Taiwanese pair of Fang-Chih Lee and Fang-Jen Lee. The world No. 6 Indian duo will face the Danish pair of Jeppe Bay and Lasse Molhede later on Friday.

Meanwhile, world No. 9 and fifth seed H S Prannoy suffered a shock second-round exit after losing in straight games against unseeded Christo Popov of France. Despite being the favourite, Prannoy failed to give any fight and lost 8-21 8-21 to bow out of the men's singles event.

Kidambi Srikanth was also knocked out on Thursday, losing to Hong Kong's Cheuk Yiu Lee in a hard-fought match. Although Srikanth is ranked 20th in the world, only one position behind his opponent, Lee kept his composure and emerged as a 22-20 21-17 winner in the singles pre-quarterfinal contest.

National champion Mithun Manjunath also bowed out in the second round, losing 19-21 10-21 to Chia Hao Lee of Chinese Taipei. While the Indian players faced disappointment in some matches, the performance of Rankireddy and Shetty offers some hope for the country in the tournament.