Star Indian shuttler HS Prannoy has pulled out of the Denmark Open Super 750 tournament due to a back injury that troubled him during his maiden bronze medal-winning run at the recently-concluded Asian Games.
Down 0-2, the Indians showed great fighting spirit as the doubles pair of Dhruv Kapila and Chirag Shetty and PV Sindhu levelled the scores after reverses in the first two matches.
However, Birmingham Commonwealth Games bronze medallists Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand bowed out of the tournament after losing their opening women's doubles match in straight games.
Satwiksairaj and Chirag won 21-17, 21-11.
Double Olympic medallist PV Sindhu survived some tense moments before progressing to the women's singles second round, but it was curtains for Lakshya Sen and Kidambi Srikanth in the men's singles at the Badminton Asia Championships, in Ningbo, China, on Wednesday.
Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand continued their impressive run, dishing out another superlative performance to advance to their second successive semi-finals at the All England Championships.
Following is India's schedule at the Asian Games in Hangzhou on Wednesday, October 4.
Lakshya Sen, returning from a break, suffered a first round exit, while Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand entered the pre-quarters of the Asia Badminton Championship.
A sensational run over the last two weeks has given wings to Ashwini Ponnappa's Olympics dreams, and the ace Indian shuttler now wants to continue her fine run in the upcoming bigger tournaments to stay on course for a trip to Paris.
Saina Nehwal and Kidambi Srikanth's woeful run continued as they suffered first round exits
Sindhu took 38 minutes to prevail over her recent nemesis from Indonesia 21-19, 21-15
Prannoy will take on Rajawat in the second round.
Double Olympic medallist PV Sindhu, who hasn't played any tournament since the Birmingham Games due to an ankle injury, is now world number five after moving up a spot.
In other India-related results, it was curtains for Ashmita Chaliha, who lost 17-21, 16-21 to Indonesia's world no. 7 Gregoria Mariska Tunjung in 35 minutes. Both teams had received a bye in their opening match.
Indian women beat Thailand 3-2 in final, clinch historic gold in Badminton Asia Team Championships
President Droupadi Murmu on Wednesday congratulated the Indian badminton mixed team for clinching silver medal at the 2022 Commonwealth Games.
Rankireddy and Shetty, who had arrived in Madrid after winning the Swiss Open Super 300 last week, retired from their first-round match
Sindhu is the only Indian to feature in the women's singles competition.
Top Indian men's doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty suffered a straight-game loss to seventh seeded English pair of Ben Lane and Sean Vendy 17-21, 14-21 in a last-8 match.
A former world no. 2, Sindhu has regained her place in the top 5 after three years. The former world champion from Hyderabad resumed her training on Monday after recovering from the injury.
Commonwealth Games champion Lakshya Sen continued to be the best-placed Indian at number seven while former world no. 1 Kidambi Srikanth gained a rung to the 11th position.
With the main draw of the Asian Badminton Championships set to get underway from Wednesday, the struggling Indian shuttlers face an uphill task.
This is the third time this year that Sindhu has been knocked out in the first round of the tournaments she's played.
The core of the team remains the same with HS Prannoy, Lakshya Sen and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty in good form and the Indian team would hope the rub of the green also goes their way when it begins campaign on Thursday.
Indian women's badminton star Saina Nehwal crashed out of the women's singles competition in the first round after a loss to China's Zhang Yiman. She lost the match 17-21, 21-19,11-21. After being a game down, Nehwal made a comeback in the second game but lost the final one.
Srikanth got his act together in the nick of time and reeled off eight straight points to move to a 16-10 lead before keeping his calm to take the match to the decider.
India's fancied shuttlers didn't break a sweat on way to completing a 5-0 sweep of Pakistan in their mixed team campaign opener at the 22nd Commonwealth Games in Birmingham on Friday.
Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand fell to their second successive semifinal exit at the All England Championship.
Star Indian shuttlers PV Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth will look to arrest their slump in form when they begin their campaign at the Australia Open badminton tournament in Sydney on Tuesday.
Double Olympic medallist PV Sindhu, who is returning from an ankle injury, begins her campaign against former World Champion Carolina Marin of Spain in the first round of Malaysia Open.
Sindhu expectedly faced no resistance from Uganda's Husina Kobugabe, winning 21-10, 21-9 in her pre-quarterfinal match.
The top seeded Indian duo, who reached the semi-finals of the season-opening Malaysia Open super 1000, was scheduled to face Chinese Taipei's Su Ching Heng and Ye Hong Wei in the opening round.
Fresh from their Korea Open triumph, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty will look to continue their dream run.
Already through to the quarter-finals, defending champions India continued their rampaging run as they beat Australia 4-1 in their final group A match of mixed team competition at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.
World Championships bronze medallist Sen had earlier advanced to the men's singles semi-finals after his opponent Lu Guang Zu of China gave a walkover.
Saina Nehwal produced a fine performance to kick-off her BWF World Championships campaign with a straight game win over Hong Kong's Cheung Ngan Yi.
In the women's doubles, Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand won 21-18, 21-19 against the Dutch duo of Debora Jille and Cheryl Seinen. Treesa and Gayatri face Chinese Taipei's Hsu Ya Ching and Lin Wan Ching in the quarter-finals.
India's HS Prannoy showed nerves of steel, advancing to his third successive quarterfinals at the World Championships.
H S Prannoy dished out another splendid show to progress to the quarter-finals with a thrilling win over Indonesia's Chico Aura Dwi Wardoyo.
Tokyo Olympian B Sai Praneeth will meet compatriot HS Prannoy in his opening match, while former Commonwealth Games champion Parupalli Kashyap will square off against a qualifier.
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