Badminton Asia Championships | Saina Nehwal, PV Sindhu, Sameer Verma qualify for Round 2, Kidambi Srikanth bows out

India ended the day on a terrible note in the continental event at Wuhan, China as the top-ranked male shuttler Srikanth was knocked out of the tournament in the first round itself. In a major upset on Day 1 of the main round, the fifth seed Indian went down 16-21, 20-22 to Shesar Rhustavito of Indonesia.

In another men’s singles encounter, Verma won his match against Kazumasa Sakai of Japan in the decider. He has qualified for the round of 32 after winning his first round match 21-13, 17-21, 21-18 in an hour and seven minutes.

However, there were no upsets in the women’s singles encounters as both Nehwal and Sindhu have qualified for the second round quite easily. Sindhu thrashed her Japanese opponent in just 28 minutes as Sayaka Takahashi went down to the Indian by 14-21, 7-21 points. On the other hand, after losing the opening game against China’s  Yue Han, Nehwal came back strong to get the better of her 12-21, 21-11, 21-17 in the opening round.

India had a terrible outing as far as the doubles events are concerned as Saurabh Sharma and Anoushka Parikh lost 21-9, 21-9 to fourth seeds Dechapol Puavaranukroh and Sapsiree Taerattanachai of Thailand while Rohan Kapoor and Kuhoo Garg went down to Indonesia’s Praveen Jordan and Melati Oktavianti 21-5, 21-15. In women’s doubles, J Meghana and Poorvisha S Ram also lost their match 21-13, 21-16 against another Thai duo of Jongkolphan Kititharakul and Rawinda Prajongjai.