Two-time Olympic medalist PV Sindhu crashed out in the women’s singles second round against unseeded Indonesian daughter Kusuma Wardani in a three-game thriller, leaving her with a chance to defend her title at the Swiss Open Super 300 badminton tournament. The dream also got shattered.
Sindhu, world number nine and seeded fourth here, went down 15-21, 21-12, 18-21 to 38th-ranked Vardani. This was the first match between these two players. But the second seeded men’s pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty posted a hard-fought 12-21, 21-17, 28-26 win over Taiwan’s Feng Chieh Li and Feng Zhen Li to enter the quarterfinals. Kept hopes up.
The world No. 6 Indian pair will next take on Denmark’s pair of JP Bey and Lasse Molhede. Earlier on Thursday, world number nine and fifth seed HS Prannoy crashed out in the second round after going down in straight games to unseeded Christo Popov of France 8-21, 8-21.
Another Indian player, Kidambi Srikanth went down 22-20, 21-17 to Hong Kong’s Cheuk Yiu Lee. National champion Mithun Manjunath also crashed out in the second round after losing 19-21 10-21 to Chia Hao Li of Chinese Taipei.
