Poor form continues to haunt ace shuttler P V Sindhu as she lost her second-round match to Japan’s Nozomi Okuhara while her compatriots Lakshya Sen and HS Prannoy stormed into the pre -quarter finals of the World Badminton Championships in Copenhagen, Denmark.
In the women’s singles, the two former world champions and Olympic medalists battled it out for 44 minutes before, Sindhu lost the match 14-21, 14-21.
This was Sindhu’s ninth loss against Nozomi Okuhara in 18 matches.
15th ranked Sindhu evenly matched the world No. 36 Okuhara before the first break. However, the Japanese built on her two-point lead at the interval and ran away with the first game.
The 28-year-old Indian struggled to find her rhythm in the first game but recovered well and an impressive start to take a 9-0 lead in the second. However, she failed to build on to that lead which got reduced to two points at the break. Okuhara unsettled the Indian with a clever mix of deft shots and smashes after the interval to first level the scores at 12-all and then seal the match.
Two-time Olympic medalist and a 2019 world champion Sindhu, was the only Indian competing in the women’s singles draw at this year’s world championships.
In the men’s singles, Commonwealth Games champion Lakshya Sen and World no 9 HS Prannoy smashed their way into the round of 16. Lakshya accounted for world No. 51 Jeon Hyeok Jin of Korea 21-11, 21-12, while Prannoy ousted world No. 21 Chico Aura Dwi Wardoyo of Indonesia 21-9, 21-14.
Earlier in the day, ranked 44th ranked women’s doubles pair of Ashwini Bhat and Shikha Gautam, made the first-round exit after losing to world No. 33 Dutch pair of Debora Jille and Cheryl Seinen 14-21, 21-11, 14-21.
World No. 125 in mixed doubles Venkat Prasad and Juhi Dewangan, , lost to world No. 52 Germans Jones Ralfy Jansen and Linda Efler 12-21,11-21.
