File photo of PV Sindhu© AFP
Indian shuttlers endured a tough day at the Denmark Open Super 750 tournament on Wednesday, with the country's challenge in both women's and mixed doubles ending in heartbreaking first-round defeats. The women's doubles pairing of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand fought valiantly but ultimately fell to Malaysia's fifth-seeded duo, Pearly Tan and Muralitharan Thinaah, in a grueling three-game match. After taking the first game 21-19, the Indian pair couldn't maintain their momentum, losing 17-21 and 15-21 in a battle that stretched for over an hour.
Despite their previous 1-5 head-to-head record against the world No. 7 Malaysian opponents, Treesa and Gayatri gave a strong performance, showing promise but bowing out early.
In the mixed doubles, the experienced Indian pair of B. Sumeeth Reddy and N. Sikki Reddy also suffered a narrow defeat. The duo was edged out by Canada's Kevin Lee and Eliana Zhang after a nail-biting contest that lasted one hour and two minutes. After winning the first game 22-20, the Indians were unable to close out the match, losing the next two games 19-21 and 22-24 in an agonizingly close finish.
While the doubles pairs faced early exits, India still had hope in the singles events. The lone bright spot for India came from double Olympic medallist PV Sindhu, who moved into the second round of the women's singles. Sindhu was leading comfortably 21-8, 13-7 when her opponent, Chinese Taipei's Pai Yu Po, retired midway through the second game, gifting the Indian a safe passage into the next round.
On Tuesday, however, Lakshya Sen, a 2021 World Championship bronze-medallist, crashed out of the men's singles after a hard-fought three-game defeat against China's Lu Guang Zu.
Women's singles players Malvika Bansod and Aakarshi Kashyap also saw their campaigns come to an end with first-round losses. Bansod struggled against Vietnam's Nguyen Thuy Linh, while Kashyap lost in straight sets to the formidable South Korean shuttler, An Se-young.
Promising young talent Unnati Hooda was set to take on Lauren Lam of the USA later in the day, while Satish Kumar Karunakaran would face Li Yang Su of Chinese Taipei in the men's singles.