Swiss Open: HS Prannoy, Kidambi Srikanth lose in straight games

Basel, March 23

World No. 9 and fifth seed HS Prannoy made a stunning second-round exit from the Swiss Open Super 300 badminton tournament after losing in straight games against unseeded Christo Popov of France here today.

Prannoy, favourite coming into the contest, looked a pale shadow of himself in front of world No. 40 Popov as he failed to put up a fight, losing 8-21 8-21 to bow out of the men’s singles event. On Wednesday, Prannoy had beaten All England Championships finalist Shi Yu Qi of China 21-17 19-21 21-17.

It turned out to be a bad day in office for Indian shuttlers as Kidambi Srikanth was the first to crash out, losing to Hong Kong’s Cheuk Yiu Lee.

Going by rankings, there was hardly anything to separate the two as Srikanth is placed 20th in the world as against his rival’s 19th position.

It was a hard-fought match, but Lee kept his composure to emerge 22-20 21-17 winner in the singles pre-quarterfinal contest.

National champion Mithun Manjunath also bowed out in the second round, losing 19-21 10-21 to Chia Hao Lee of Chinese Taipei.

On Wednesday night, two-time Olympics medallist and fourth seed PV Sindhu had made a positive start to her title defence, beating Jenjira Stadelmann of Switzerland 21-9 21-16 in a lopsided opening round women’s singles match.