Badminton
Day one of the Hyderabad Open Super 100 served up a mixed bag of results for the upcoming badminton stars of India.
22-year-old Harsheel Dani and reigning Asian Junior Championships gold medallist Lakshya Sen slumped to straight game defeats in the qualifying rounds of the tournament.
Sen was beaten 21-17, 21-15 by Malaysian prodigy Cheam June Wei, while Asian Games bronze medallist Tanvi Lad also suffered a shock defeat on qualification day to 17-year-old Aakarshi Kashyap.
India’s Shikha Gautam, though, emerged victorious in a closely contested tie against Hong Kong’s Yeung Sum Yee to qualify for the first round where she faces an uphill task against 76th-ranked Chinese star Ji Shu Ting.
Coming up
On the other hand, the nation’s premier singles players like Parupalli Kashyap, Sai Praneeth and Sameer Verma were granted byes for the first round and are expected to take the court only on Wednesday.
The top-ranked women’s doubles pair for the hosts, Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy are also scheduled to play their first game on Wednesday.
Rankireddy-Shetty pull out
India’s top men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, who jumped to ninth on the BWF rankings following their historic Thailand Open victory, have pulled out of the tournament on Tuesday after Rankireddy complained of a shoulder discomfort.
The Hyderabad Open Super 100 has also been skipped by Saina Nehwal, PV Sindhu and Srikanth Kidambi with the BWF World Championships starting later this month.