Young Indian shuttler Sai Praneeth suffered a straight game defeat against higher-ranked Kazushi Yamada of Japan in the men’s singles to crash out of the Asian Badminton Championship in Chengdu, China on Wednesday.
It is all over for India, barring the mixed doubles pair of Arun Vishnu and Aparna Balan, who reached the second round after their first round rivals Baek Cheol Shin and Min Jung Kim of Korea decided to withdraw at the last minute.
Praneeth lost 17-21, 13-21 to the 10th seeded Yamada in a little over half-an-hour, while in the women’s singles Aditi Mutatkar battled hard before succumbing to Salakjit Ponsana of Thailand 14-21, 21-14, 7-21.
In the men’s doubles, Chinese pair of Xiaolong Liu and Zihan Qiu put paid to the hopes of Pranav Chopra and Tarun Kona as they lost 10-21, 10-21 in 23 minutes.
Compatriots Manu Attri and Jishnu Sanyal also suffered a similar fate as their gallant fight against Bang Duc Bui and Manh Thang Dao ended in a 23-25, 21-14, 14-21 defeat to the Vietnamese duo.
Akshay Dewalkar and Arun Vishnu also faced defeat in the first round itself, losing to Hiroyuki Endo and Kenichi Hayakawa of Japan 17-21, 15-21 in another men’s doubles match.
Aparna Balan and Prajakta Sawant also could not cross the first hurdle and lost 9-21, 9-21 to local pair of Shu Cheng and Jin Ma in the women’s doubles. Up against third seeds Miyuki Maeda and Satoko Suetsuna of Japan, young Indian pair of Pradnya Gadre and Jyotshna Polavarapu found the going tough and suffered a 17-21, 8-21 defeat in 29 minutes.
In the mixed doubles category, Mohammad Rijal and Debby Susanto dashed Pranav Chopra and Prajakta Sawant’s hopes as the Indonesian pair defeated the Indian duo 21-10, 21-15 in 20 minutes.
