Denmark Open: Day of despair for India as Sindhu, Praneeth crash out

Indian hopes at the Denmark Open badminton tournament were dealt a massive blow as P.V. Sindhu and B. Sai Praneeth crashed out in the pre-quarters of the women's and men's singles at the Denmark Open in Odense.

While Sindhu lost 14-21 17-21 to 17-year-old An Se Young from Korea in a 40-minute contest, Praneeth was beaten 6-21 14-21 by world no. 1 and two-time world champion Kento Momota of Japan. The Hyderabad shuttler had lost to Momota at the World Championships in Basel, Switzerland.

Sindhu, the Rio Olympics silver medallist, is yet to win a title since winning the World Championships in August this year. She lost in the first and second round at the China Open and Korea Open respectively.

Earlier, Sameer Verma, too, was knocked out of the tournament, losing 12-21, 10-21, to reigning Olympic champion Chen Long in men's singles second round.

Yesterday, Saina Nehwal and Kidambi Srikanth suffered first-round losses.

Saina continued with her struggling form, losing to Japan's Sayaka Takahashi 15-21 21-23 in the match that lasted 37 minutes.

The 29-year-old London Olympics bronze medallist was the runner-up last year.

In the men's singles first round, former champion Srikanth lost to fourth seed Anders Antonsen of Denmark 14-21 18-21 in the match that lasted 43 minutes.

Srikanth, who had skipped China and Korea Open due to a knee issue, had beaten Antonsen at the 2017 World Championships, but the Danish shuttler has come a long way since then, having reached the finals of this year's World Championships in Switzerland.

Currently ranked fourth, Antonsen has won the Indonesia Masters, Barcelona Spain Masters, European Games and made it to the finals at Indonesia Open Super 1000 this year.

To make it worse for India, the men's doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty suffered a 16-21 15-21 defeat against sixth seed Chinese combination of Han Cheng Kai and Zhou Hao Dong.