Highest-ranked Indian shuttler Chetan Anand crashed out of the men’s singles event of the Denmark Open Super Series while three of his compatriots sailed into the second round at Odense in Denmark.
Anand lost to eighth-seed Hu Yun of Hong Kong 21-15, 15-21, 16-21 in a 48-minute first round match.
The Indian came up with some fine smash winners and was ahead from the beginning till the end of the first game. But he failed to maintain the good work and his opponent came back strongly with better net play and rallies.
Hu Yun took an early 7-2 lead in the second game and Chetan was always doing the catch up job though he closed the gap to 15-16 before his opponent won five straight points.
In the decider, it was neck-and-neck initially but once the Hong Kong shuttler took a 16-11 lead, the writing was clear on the wall for the Indian who won five straight points from 11-20 down before losing the match.
Qualifier Ajay Jayaram retired hurt after playing just one point in his first round match against Du Pengyu of China.
Parupalli Kashyap and Anand Pawar, however, gave the Indian camp the cheers by beating Scott Evans of Ireland and local lad Hans-Kristian Vittinghus.
World number 38 Kashyap took 38 minutes to beat Evans, ranked five places lower than him, 21-11 22-20.
Kashyap will next meet third-seed Boonsak Ponsana of Thailand who defeated Yamada Kazushi of Japan 21-13, 24-26, 21-15 in another first round match.
Pawar won a closely-contested game against Vittinghus 16-21, 21-17, 24-22 in 57 minutes. Pawar will next play sixth-seed Marc Zwiebler of Germany who beat Raul Must of Estonia 21-16, 22-20.
