India’s two-time Olympic medallist PV Sindhu crashed out of the Hong Kong Open Super 500 with a shock loss to unseeded Line Christophersen of Denmark in Hong Kong on Wednesday.
The Indian shuttler, who had reached the BWF World Championships quarterfinals last month, suffered a 21-15, 16-21, 19-21 loss to the lower-ranked Dane in a Round of 16 contest that lasted less than an hour.
The shock exit is another backwards step in Sindhu’s quest to return to the top of women’s badminton and comes at a time when the former world number two was showing signs of progress. What made the loss even more painful was the fact that Sindhu had never lost to 25-year-old Christophersen in six outings before the meeting in Hong Kong.
Sindhu undone by relentless Danish shuttler
Sindhu also suffered early exits at the Swiss Open and Japan Open in the first half of the year. Sindhu started well, taking an early lead at 3-1 in the first game, before the Danish player rallied to level the score at 5-all. At 14-13, there was very little to separate the two players, but Sindhu showed her experience and upped the ante to race away in the opener.
But from a similar stage in the second game, when the scores were 13-12 in favour of her favour, Sindhu made several errors to give an opening to the Dane, who wrapped up the game by winning five points on the bounce.
The deciding game saw both players upping their level of quality and focus as the match went neck and neck till 19-all. However, Christophersen won two successive points to end Sindhu’s campaign.
Double blow for India in women’s doubles
In the women’s doubles, the Indian pair of Rutaparna Panda and Swetaparna Panda suffered a humbling 17-21, 9-21 loss in just 28 minutes against the local duo of Oi Ki Vanessa Pang and Sum Yau Wong in the Round of 16.
Dhruv Kapila and Tanisha Crasto also lost their pre-quarterfinal match, crashing out after a 16-21, 11-21 defeat against the Chinese Taipei duo of Chen Cheng Kuan and Hsu Yin-Hui in 31 minutes.
World No.31 Ayush Shetty will take on lower-ranked Chinese-Taipei shuttler Su Li Yang in the men’s singles Round of 32 later in the day.
On Tuesday, India’s premier men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty edged past Taiwan’s Chiu Hsiang Chieh and Wang Chi-Lin in their opening round clash.