Badminton, French Open Super 750: Indian campaign ends as Sindhu, Satwik-Chirag exit in Round of 16

It was a disappointing day for Indian shuttlers as PV Sindhu retired and the doubles duo of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty lost in their Round of 16 matches to end the campaign for India at the French Open Super 750 tournament in Rennes on Thursday.

This comes a day after both Kidambi Srikanth and Lakshya Sen lost their opening matches in men’s singles on Wednesday.

In the women’s singles event, Sindhu faced off against Thailand’s Supanida Katethong against whom she won in the quarter-final of the the Denmark Open last week.

The opening game between Sindhu and Katethong was quite close with the scoreline not showcasing a lead for either player. It was all level until 9-all when Sindhu went on a four-point winning streak to take a 13-9 lead. Katethong replied with equal force and also went on a string of five consecutive points to take a 14-13 lead. But Sindhu recovered quickly to dominate the latter half of the game and won the first game 21-18.

The second game started off with a 1-1 scoreline before Sindhu had to take a medical time-out for an undisclosed injury. The Indian soon decided to retire from the match and give the result to the Thai player.

In the men’s doubles event, Satwik-Chirag also began the opening game against the Indonesian pair of Mohammad Ahsan and Hendra Setiawan with close exchanges. At 10-all, Ahsan-Setiawan began to take charge of the game and started to take a lead in the scoreline. Trailing 13-18, the Indian duo then went on a five-point winning streak to make up for the deficit and level scorelines.

However, Satwik-Chirag were unable to press and take the lead with the Indonesians winning the opening game 25-23.

The second game was more close all the way through with both pairs keeping abreast of each other. It was at 8-all when the Indians began to edge ahead slightly and continued to maintain at least a two-point lead to close out the second game 21-19 and level the match at 1-game all.

In the third game, the Indians began well, taking a three-point lead at 8-5. In the middle of the deciding game, Ahsan-Setiawan then pulled back to level things up and keep Satwik-Chirag in check at 12-all. After that, the Indonesians got a slim lead and never let it slip, ultimately closing out the match 23-25, 21-19, 19-21.