Denmark Open badminton: Indian challenge ends in doubles

ODENSE: India's doubles campaign ended at the Denmark Open badminton tournament after the women's and mixed pairings from the country bowed out following hard-fought first-round losses here on Wednesday.

Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand (women's doubles) and B Sumeeth Reddy and N Sikki Reddy (mixed doubles) suffered three-game defeats in their opening contests.

Taking the court first, Treesa and Gayatri squandered a game's lead to go down 21-19 17-21 15-21 against fifth-seeded Malaysian combination of Pearly Tan and Muralitharan Thinaah in a match that lasted one hour and 14 minutes.

The odds were stacked against the world no.21 Indian team as it had an inferior 1-5 head-to-head record against their world no.7 opponents from Malaysia.

But Treesa and Gayatri gave their rivals a tough fight before bowing out.

In mixed doubles too, Sumeeth Reddy and Sikki Reddy let slip a game's lead to lose 22-20 19-21 22-24 to the Canadian pair of Kevin Lee and Eliana Zhang in one hour and two minutes.

Later on Wednesday, the promising Unnati Hooda will be up against USA's Lauren Lam in her women's singles opening-round match, while Satish Kumar Karunakaran will play Li Yang Su of Chinese Taipei in men's singles.

On Tuesday, Lakshya Sen, a 2021 World Championships bronze-medallist, crashed out of the men's singles event after suffering a three-game defeat at the hands of China's Lu Guang Zu in the first round.

Malvika Bansod and Aakarshi Kashyap too made first-round exits from the women's singles competition.

However, two-time Olympic medallist PV Sindhu moved into the second round after her opponent Pai Yu Po of Chinese Taipei retired midway in the second game with the score reading 21-8 13-7 in the Indian's favour.