Sindhu loses to Danish opponent in Hong Kong Open

Hong Kong, Sep 10 (PTI) India's two-time Olympic medallist shuttler PV Sindhu bowed out of the Hong Kong Open Super 500 with a loss to unseeded Line Christophersen of Denmark in three games, here on Wednesday.

Sindhu, who had reached the BWF World Championships quarterfinals last month, lost the round-of-32 contest 21-15, 16-21, 19-21 to the lower-ranked Dane in less than an hour.

This was Sindhu's first loss to the 25-year-old Christophersen in six outings and comes just when the star Indian shuttler was showing signs of finding her form this season after early exits at the Swiss Open and Japan Open in the first half of the year.

Sindhu took an early lead at 3-1 in the first game before the Danish player equalised at 5-all. Leading 14-13, Sindhu upped her game allowing her opponent just one point as the Indian raced away to take the opener.

The second game saw the Indian leading 13-12 before errors cropped up in her game as she gave away five points on the trot.

The decider was a battle of nerves with both players going neck and neck till 19-all before two decisive points for Christophersen ended Sindhu's campaign.

The women's doubles pair of Rutaparna Panda and Swetaparna Panda lost their round-of-32 match to Hong Kong's Oi Ki Vanessa Pang and Sum Yau Wong 17-21, 9-21 in just 28 minutes, while the Chinese Taipei duo of Chen Cheng Kuan and Hsu Yin-Hui got the better of Dhruv Kapil and Tanisha Crasto 16-21, 11-21 in 31 minutes.

World No.31 Ayush Shetty will face lower-ranked Chinese-Taipei shuttler Su Li Yang in men's singles round of 32 later in the day.

On Tuesday, India's top men's doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty had overcame Taiwan's Chiu Hsiang Chieh and Wang Chi-Lin in their opening round. PTI AM AM TAP