Challenging day for Indian shuttlers: Priyanshu and Aakarshi suffer defeats

Indian shuttlers Priyanshu Rajawat and Aakarshi Kashyap bowed out of the ongoing Hong Kong Open after registering losses in their respective matches on Wednesday. In the first round match, Priyanshu went down to Japan’s Kanta Tsuneyama in the men’s singles match. The Indian lost a one-sided match by 21-13, 21-14. In her first round women’s singles match. Aakarshi lost to Yvonne Li by 21-18, 21-10. Commonwealth Games bronze medallists Gayatri Gopichand and Treesa Jolly progressed to the Round of 16 in the women’s doubles event of the Hong Kong Open 2023 in Kowloon on Tuesday. Competing on the badminton courts of the Hong Kong Coliseum, Gopichand and Jolly got the better of Debora Jille and Cheryl Seinen 21-15, 16-21, 21-16 in a match that lasted for 54 minutes. The Indian badminton players were in a spot of bother at the start of the match, trailing 4-7 after initial exchanges. However, Gopichand and Jolly dragged things back to level the scores at 8-8 and saw off the first game to take a 1-0 lead in the match. The second game was a close contest, but the Indian team gave up eight of the final 11 points. In the third game, Gayatri Gopichand and Treesa Jolly staged a comeback to take an 11-7 lead into halftime. The Indians maintained their advantage at the change of ends and advanced to the round of 16. The BWF Super 500 tournament’s preliminary round was not reached by any of the five Indian men’s singles badminton players.
World No. 39 Kiran George started his qualifying campaign with a 21-15, 21-17 win over world No. 41 Chi Yu Jen of Chinese Taipei. Asian Games-bound Malvika Bansod progressed to the main draw of the women’s singles with a 21-14, 11-10 win over Thailand’s Pitchamon Opatniputh. The tournament started on September 12 and will be concluded by September 17.