Hong Kong Open: Sindhu faces early exit; Prannoy, Sen prevail

HONG KONG — Ace shuttler PV Sindhu suffered an early exit at the Hong Kong Open Super 500 after losing to Denmark’s Line Christophersen in a three-game thriller on Wednesday.

The two-time Olympic medallist, who had reached the World Championships quarterfinals last month, fell 21-15, 16-21, 19-21 in the round of 32. This was Sindhu’s first defeat in six meetings against European Championships silver medallist Christophersen and her sixth first-round exit on the BWF World Tour this year.

Sindhu began strongly, closing out the opening game with a dominant run from 14-13. But Christophersen bounced to snatch the second game. The decider turned into a tense battle, locked at 19-all, before the Dane held her nerve to clinch her first win over Sindhu.

Also read: Hong Kong Open: Satwik-Chirag advance to round of 16; Kiran George enters main draw

Anupama Upadhyaya was also ousted from the women’s singles after a 17-21, 22-20, 14-21 loss against fourth seed Tomoka Miyazaki of Japan.

In the men's singles, India’s top-ranked player Lakshya Sen also progressed to the second round after a hard-fought win over Olympian Wang Tzu-wei of Chinese Taipei.

Sen held his nerve to win the opening game in a tie-break before losing the second.

However, he regrouped to open up a healthy lead en route to clinching the deciding game and winning the match 22-20, 16-21, 21-15 in an hour and 13 minutes.

He will meet countryman H S Prannoy in the next round. World No. 34 Prannoy upset China’s Lu Guang Zu with a commanding 21-17, 21-14 victory in just 44 minutes.

Kiran George also advanced to the second round after straight-game 21-16, 21-11 victory over Singapore’s Jason Teh. Meanwhile, Ayush Shetty rallied from a game down to progress to the next round with a 15-21, 21-19, 21-13 win over Chinese Taipei’s Su Li-yang.