India Open: Axelsen conquers Srikanth

New Delhi, January 18

Kidambi Srikanth, a former World Championships medallist, fought hard but world No. 1 Viktor Axelsen, the reigning world and Olympics champion, proved too strong for him at the India Open Super 750 badminton tournament today. The Indian lost 14-21 19-21 to Axelsen to crash out in the first round of a second successive BWF World Tour tournament – he had been beaten by Japan’s Kenta Nishimoto at the Malaysia Open last week, a tournament won by Axelsen.

In other matches of interest to the home crowd, world No. 39 Aakarshi Kashyap and world No. 34 Malvika Bansod failed to match their strong rivals and bowed in the women’s section. Aakarshi lost 15-21 12-21 to former champion Beiwen Zhang of the USA while Malvika squandered an 11-8 lead in the opening game to eventually go down 17-21 12-21 to world No. 12 Busanan Ongbamrungphan of Thailand.

Elsewhere, Akane Yamaguchi beat Clara Azurmendi of Spain 21-7 21-11.