Double Olympic medallist PV Sindhu’s inconsistent run continued as she made an opening round exit in the Korea Open Super 500 tournament with a narrow three-game loss to Chinese Taipei’s Pai Yu-Po, here on Wednesday. Sindhu, who slipped to world number 17 this week, lost to the 32-year-old world no. 22 Pai Yu-Po 18-21 21-10 13-21 in the women’s singles opening round. The contest lasted 58 minutes. India’s Priyanshu Rajawat, however, progressed to the second round with a straight-game win over local player Choi Ji Hoon in men’s singles competition. World number 32 Rajawat, the Orleans Masters winner, saw off Choi 21-15 21-19 in 42 minutes to set up a clash with top seed Kodai Naraoka of Japan. Mixed pair of N Sikki Reddy and Rohan Kapoor, who had won the Victor Denmark Masters international challenge in June, made it to the second round with a 21-17 21-17 win over Phillipines’ Alvin Morada and Alyssa Ysabel Leonardo.
The Indian duo will face Chinese fourth seeds Feng Yan Zhe and Huang Dong Ping next. Kiran George, however, failed to cross the opening round hurdle, going down to Chinese Taipei’s world number 29 Wang Tzu wei 17-21 9-21 in another men’s singles match. Aakarshi Kashyap, Tasnim Mir, Mithun Manjunath and Ashmita Chaliha — all were ousted from the tournament in the first round, underlining the huge gulf in quality in the second batch of Indian shuttlers. While Kashyap lost 12-21 17-21 to China’s world number 20 Zhang Yi Man, Mir went down 11-21 18-21 to Korea’s world no. 19 Kim Ga Eun.
National champion Mithun was no match for Malaysia’s world number 23 Ng Tze Yong and Ashmita too sink without a trace against Olympic champion Chen Yu Fei, losing 13-21 12-21. B Sumeeth Reddy and Ashwini Ponnappa too suffered a 21-23, 21-13, 12-21 loss against Korean pair of Song hyun Cho and Lee Jung Hyun in their mixed doubles opening round. The BWF World Tour is divided into six levels, namely World Tour Finals, four Super 1000, six Super 750, seven Super 500, and 11 Super 300.
