Double OIympic medallist PV Sindhu and Lakshya Sen suffered early exits from the Denmark Open, while Kidambi Srikanth and Tanvi Sharma battled their way into the second round of their respective singles events on Tuesday.
Sindhu suffered a first-round loss at the Denmark Open, going down 21-13, 23-25, 19-21 to lower-ranked Germany’s Yvonne Li in a gruelling one-hour-and-five-minute women’s singles clash at the SJF Bank Arena.
Sindhu arrived in Denmark on the back of mixed results, having clinched the Japan Open Super 750 title in July before making the quarterfinals of last week’s Arctic Open, where she suffered a hard-fought three-game loss to Thailand’s Ratchanok Intanon.
Sen went down 18-21, 21-13, 15-21 to third seed Chou Tien Chen of Chinese
Taipei in the men’s singles first round, with the match lasting one hour and three minutes.
In another men’s singles first-round match, Srikanth overcame France’s Arnaud Merkle 22-20, 21-19 in 46 minutes. He will next take on seventh seed Alex Lanier, of France as well, in the pre-quarterfinals of the USD 950,000 Super 750 tournament.
Srikanth won the title in Denmark in 2017.
Tanvi also battled hard to defeat Japan’s Natsuki Nidaira 21-17, 16-21, 21-19 in a women’s singles first-round match that lasted one hour and 12 minutes. She will next face Germany’s Yvonne Li.
(With PTI Inputs)
