SINGAPORE: India’s campaign ended at the Singapore Open Super 750 tournament after Kidambi Srikanth lost in straight games to Chia Hao Lee of Chinese Taipei in the men’s singles second round here on Thursday.
Srikanth lost 15-21, 19-21 to Lee in 37 minutes in their first meeting on the professional circuit. At the Singapore Indoor Stadium, both players battled it out early on, with Lee raising his game in the second half of the opener. Srikanth led 16-10 at one stage in the second game, but the Chinese Taipei player came up with a good comeback.
Earlier in the day, upcoming shuttler Priyanshu Rajawat’s dream run ended with a Round-of-16 loss to third seed Kodai Naraoka from Japan.The unseeded Rajawat, who had stunned World No.15 Kanta Tsuneyama of Japan in the opening round, lost 17-21, 16-21 to Naraoka.
Having ousted HS Prannoy in the first round, the World No.4 Naraoka maintained his lead in the second-round contest as the Indian, ranked 37 in the world, played catch-up to go down in a 47-minute match.
In the men’s doubles event, the duo of MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila went down 15-21, 19-21 to England’s Ben Lane and Sean Vendy in a 41-minute second-round match.
PV Sindhu, who had come into the tournament as the women’s singles defending champion, Saina Nehwal, Prannoy, Lakshya Sen, the men’s doubles combination of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty and the women’s doubles pair of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand had crashed out earlier.