Sindhu loses to Danish opponent; Prannoy, Sen advance in Hong Kong Open

Hong Kong, Sep 10 (PTI) India's two-time Olympic medallist shuttler PV Sindhu bowed out, while HS Prannoy and Lakshya Sen scored hard-fought wins to advance in the Hong Kong Open Super 500 tournament, here on Wednesday.

Sindhu, who had reached the BWF World Championships quarterfinals last month, lost the women's singles round-of-32 contest 21-15, 16-21, 19-21 to unseeded Danish shuttler Line Christophersen.

However, Prannoy, ranked 34th in the world, upset 14th ranked Lu Guang Zu of China 21-17, 21-14 in 44 minutes, while Sen too got his campaign going with a gruelling 22-20, 16-21, 21-15 win to secure a place in the men's singles pre-quarterfinals.

Kiran George also secured a place in the men's singles last-16 getting the better of Singapore's higher-ranked Jia Heng Jason Teh 21-16, 21-11 in 34 minutes.

For Sindhu, this was her first loss to the 25-year-old Christophersen in six outings, coming at a time when the star Indian star was beginning to rediscover her form after early exits at the Swiss Open and Japan Open earlier this year.

Sindhu took an early 3-1 lead in the first game before her opponent equalised 5-all. Leading 14-13, Sindhu upped her game allowing Christophersen just one point before taking 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 won their round-of-32 match against 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 TAP AM TAP