By Pragati Saha
On Wednesday, India’s two-time Olympic medal winner P.V.Sindhu lost to Line Christophersen of Denmark at the Hong Kong Open. Sindhu, who previously reached the BWF World Championship quarterfinals last month, lost the round to a lower-ranked Dane in less than an hour. For the first time in the last six matches, Sindhu was defeated by 25-year-old Christophersen. This loss took place at the moment when Sindhu was starting to regain her form after having early exit earlier this year from the Swiss open and the Japan Open.
Initially, Sindhu took a lead of 3-1, before the Danish Player equalized the score at 5-11. Leading the game by 14-13, Sindhu allowed her opponent to have a one-point lead . In the second game, Sindhu was leading the game 13-12 before an error occurred in the game, as she gave free points to her opponent continuously.
This game was a battle of nerves with both the players going head-to-head till 19-all before there were two decisive points for Christophersen, which ended the campaign for Sindhu.
In contrast, the women’s double pair of Rituparna Panda and Swetaparna Panda was defeated by Hong Kong’s Oi Ki Vanessa Pang and Sum Yau Wong within 28 minutes with the scoreline of 17-21. 9-21 in the match of round 32. In the meanwhile, in the mixed doubles event Dhruv Kapil and Tanisha Crasto were defeated by the Chinese Taipei Duo of Cheng Cheng Kuan and Hsu Yin-Hui in 31 minutes with the score 16-21, 11-21.
Overall, it was a disappointing day for the Indian Shutters at Hong Kong. India’s rising star Ayush Shetty (world no. 31) is scheduled to face the lower-ranked Taiwanese player Su Li Yang later in the day.
A positive moment initially took place on Tuesday when the men’s double pair of Swastikaraj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty sealed a victory against the Taiwan duo of Chiu Hsiang Chieh and Wang Chi-Lin in their opening match.