Indonesia Open badminton: India’s PV Sindhu suffers early exit

Indian badminton player PV Sindhu crashed out of the Indonesia Open 2022 BWF Super1000 tournament after losing her women’s singles first round match to China's He Bing Jiao at the Istora Stadium in Jakarta on Tuesday.

PV Sindhu, the world No. 7 in the latest badminton rankings, lost the match 21-14, 21-18 to Jiao, who improved her head-to-head record to 10-8 against the former world champion.

World No. 9 He Bing Jiao started the match better and raced to a 9-2 lead as Sindhu seemed slow off the blocks in the opening exchanges.

However, the Indian shuttler, who had defeated Jiao to win the Tokyo Olympics bronze medal last year, came back into the contest and managed to reduce the deficit to 14-12 after prevailing in some closely-fought rallies.

The fightback, though, came a bit too late as Jiao upped the ante and won the first game 21-14.

The change of sides in the second game brought PV Sindhu little joy as Jiao, once again, dominated the early exchanges and took a four-point advantage at the break.

PV Sindhu tried hard to get back into the match after the restart and while she did come up with some scorching winners, a bunch of unforced errors cost her as Jiao wrapped up the match in 47 minutes.

PV Sindhu was the only Indian women’s singles player at the Indonesia Open.

B Sai Praneeth knocked out of men’s singles

In the men’s singles, India’s B Sai Praneeth, the world No. 19, was also shown the door early by Denmark’s Hans-Kristian Solberg Vittinghus.

The world No. 21 Dane made easy work of Praneeth in the opening game before overcoming a much sterner challenge in the second. Vittinghus won the match 21-16, 21-19 in 45 minutes.

Later in the day, India’s top women’s doubles pair of Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy defeated the pair of fellow Indian Srivedya Gurazada and USA’s Ishika Jaiswal 21-15, 21-8 to progress into the next round. They will face Tokyo 2020 silver medallists Chen Qing Chen and Jia Yi Fan of China, next.

World No. 30 Sameer Verma, meanwhile, defeated 43rd-ranked Thomas Rouxel of France 21-19, 21-15 and will be up against reigning Asian champion and world No. 5 Lee Zii Jia in his round of 16 match.

In the men’s doubles, BS Reddy and Manu Attri lost to reigning world champions Takuro Hoki and Yugo Kobayashi of Japan 21-8, 21-11 while the mixed doubles pair of Ishaan Bhatnagar and Tanisha Crasto were handed a 21-14, 21-11 defeat by Hong Kong’s Chang Tak Ching and NG Wing Yung.

Kidambi Srikanth and Lakshya Sen start their campaign on Wednesday.