Bad day for Indian badminton players, Prannoy and Srikanth out of Swiss Open
World number nine and fifth seed HS Prannoy crashed out of the Swiss Open Super 300 badminton tournament after going down in straight games to unseeded Christo Popov of France, here on Thursday. Pranay was considered a strong contender in the contest. But he looked pale in front of world number 40 Popov and could not mount any challenge. He crashed out of the men’s singles event after losing 8-21 8-21.
It turned out to be a bad day for the Indian badminton players as Kidambi Srikanth was the first player to be eliminated on Thursday, losing to Hong Kong’s Cheuk Yiu Lee. It was a tough fight between 20th ranked Srikanth and 19th ranked Cheuk Yiu Lee. But the Hong Kong player showed composure to win 22-20, 21-17 in the singles pre-quarterfinals.
National champion Mithun Manjunath also bowed out in the second round. He was defeated by Chia Hao Lee of Chinese Taipei 21-19 21-10. On Wednesday night, Prannoy had booked a place in the men’s singles pre-quarterfinals with a win over All England Championship finalist Shi Yu Qi of China in the first round.
Meanwhile, Sindhu, a two-time Olympic medalist and seeded fourth here, got off to a flying start to defend her title, defeating Switzerland’s Jenzira Städelmann 21-9 21-16 in the first round of the women’s singles. Sindhu will face Indonesia’s 20-year-old Putri Kusuma Wardani, who was part of the gold medal-winning team at the 2022 Asia Team Championships. The second seeded men’s pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty will face Taiwan’s Fang Chih Li and Fang Zhen Li.
