India’s male shuttlers, led by the experienced duo of H S Prannoy and Kidambi Srikanth, were off to a brilliant start but it was curtains for double Olympic-medallist PV Sindhu as she bowed out with a first-round loss at the Malaysia Masters badminton tournament in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday. Prannoy and Srikanth were joined by Satish Karunakaran in the second round of the event. Taking the court first, 2023 world championships bronze medallist Prannoy stunned fifth seed Kenta Nishimoto of Japan 19-21 21-17 21-16 in a hard-fought contest that lasted one hour and 22 minutes.
The Indian will play Yushi Tanaka of Japan in the second round.
Karunakaran, who won the 2023 Odisha Masters and 2024 Guwahati Masters, also registered an upset by stunning third seed Chou Tien Chen of Chinese Taipei 21-13 21-14 in just 39 minutes. He will next face Christo Popov of France.
Ayush Shetty, who had reached the semifinals at the Taipei Open super 300, also progressed after getting past Brian Yang of Canada 20-22 21-10 21-8, while world number 34 Priyanshu Rajawat made a quick exit losing to Singapore’s Jia Heng Jason Teh 15-21, 17-21.
Ayush, a 2023 World Junior Championships bronze medallist, will meet France’s Toma Junior Popov.
Later, former world no.1 Srikanth, a 2021 World Championships silver medallist, stunned a higher-ranked opponent in sixth seed Lu Guang Zu of China 23-21 13-21 21-11 in a 57-minute showdown to progress.
The 32-year-old from Guntur, who is on a comeback trial, will next face a tricky player in Nhat Nguyen of Ireland.
But Sindhu’s poor form continued as she failed to get past the opening hurdle of the Super 500 tournament, losing 11-21 21-14 15-21 against Nguyen Thuy Linh of Vietnam.
Besides Sindhu, the other three women’s singles players, Unnati Hooda, Aakarshi Kashyap and Malvika Bansod, too lost their opening-round matches.
Malvika went down to world No. 27 Chiu Pin-Chian of Chinese-Taipei 21-19, 18-21, 8-21, while Aakarshi was crushed by eighth-seeded Indonesian player Putri Kusuma Wardani 9-21, 8-21. Unnati then lost to Chinese-Taipei’s Lin Hsiang Ti 12-21, 20-22.
The Indian mixed doubles duo of Dhruv Kapila and Tanisha Crasto also moved into the second round with a 21-18 15-21 21-14 win over the Indonesian pair of Adnan Maulana and Indah Cahya Sari Jamil, but all other Indian pairs suffered defeats.
Ashith Surya and Amrutha Pramuthesh were no match for top seeds Jiang Zheng Bang and Wei Yaxin, as they lost 10-21 12-21 in the opening round of the mixed doubles event.
Rohan Kapoor and Ruthvika Shivani Gadde too lost 10-21 14-21 to fourth seeds Guo Xin Wa and Chen Fang Hui of China.
The pairing of Karunakaran and Aadya Variyath was shown the door by Indonesia’s Verrell Yustin Mulia and Lisa Ayu Kusumawati 15-21 16-21.
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