India’s campaign at the Denmark Open came to a disappointing end as PV Sindhu, B Sai Praneeth and Sameer Verma, all three exited from the championship after suffering straight-game losses, in Odense, Denmark on Thursday.
Denmark Open 2019
World Champion P V Sindhu, seeded fifth, yet again struggled to buck the trend of early exits as she was knocked out of the Denmark Open after a straight-game loss against An Se Young in the second round. The Olympic silver medallist lost 14-21 17-21 to the Korean in a 40-minute second-round women’s singles clash at the BWF World Tour Super 750 event.
Talking about Sindhu’s defeat, in the 40-minute women’s singles duel, Korea’s Se Young showed great control and precision as she didn’t allow Sindhu to execute her game plan. The Korean raced to a 6-1 lead early on but Sindhu narrowed it down to 7-8 at one stage, raising expectations of a change of script. But Se Young was relentless as she zoomed to a 14-7 advantage and then slowly moved ahead to pocket the opening game.
In the second game, Sindhu held an 8-4 lead at one stage but Se Young surpassed her with a 9-8 advantage. Sindhu again moved ahead before the Korean reeled off six straight points from 14-16 to grab four match points and converted it on her second attempt to seal her place in the quarters.
Denmark Open: Sindhu, Sameer, Sai Praneeth knocked out
Notably, this was Sindhu’s third successive early exit from a tournament since claiming the World Championship at Basel, Switzerland in August. The 24-year-old Indian had lost in the second and first round at the China Open and Korea Open respectively in the last two events.
The day turned out to be a dismal day for Indian shuttlers in general as B Sai Praneeth, Sameer Verma, and men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty also went down in straight games in their second rounds.
While Praneeth was outclassed by two-time World Champion Kento Momota of Japan by 6-21, 14-21 in yet another dominating show, Sameer lost 12-21, 10-21 to Olympic champion Chen Long of China.
Thailand Open champions Satwik and Chirag also suffered a 16-21, 15-21 defeat against sixth seed Chinese combination of Han Cheng Kai and Zhou Hao Dong in men’s doubles.
Later in the day, Pranaav Chopra and N Sikki Reddy put up a gallant fight before going down 24-26, 21-13, 11-21 to fourth seeded Malaysian pair of Chan Peng Soon and Goh Liu Ying in the mixed doubles competition.
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