BASEL: The World No.9 and fifth seed HS Prannoy made a second-round exit from the Swiss Open Super 300 badminton after losing in straight games against the unseeded Christo Popov of France here on Thursday.
Prannoy, favourite coming into the contest, looked a pale shadow of himself in front of World No.40 Popov as he failed to fight, losing 8-21, 8-21 to bow out of the men’s singles event. It turned out to be a bad day in the office for Indian shuttlers as Kidambi Srikanth was the first to crash out on Thursday, losing to Hong Kong’s Cheuk Yiu Lee.
Going by rankings, there was hardly anything to separate the two since Srikanth is placed 20th in the world as against his rival’s 19th position. It was a hard-fought match, with Lee keeping his composure to emerge 22-20, 21-17 winner in the pre-quarterfinal.
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, Prannoy had defeated All England Championships finalist Shi Yu Qi of China to enter the pre-quarterfinals.
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