It was a disappointing Wednesday for India at the badminton world junior championships in Markham, Canada, with seven defeats for the country’s shuttlers out of 12 matches.
Among the seeded players to fall in the third round on Wednesday were women’s singles eighth seed Purva Barve and men’s doubles fifth seeds Dhruv Kapila and Krishna Prasad Garaga.
Junior world No 4 Lakshya Sen is the only Indian singles shuttler left in the tournament, along with men’s doubles 12th seeds Vishnu Vardhan Goud/Srikrishna Sai Kumar Podile and women’s doubles players Aditi Bhatt and Tanisha Crasto.
Sen had no trouble against Italy’s Giovanni Toti, beating him 21-7, 21-13 to move into the pre-quarterfinals. The 17-year-old is now India’s only real medal hope in the tournament and will take on ninth seed Chen Shiau Cheng in the fourth round on Thursday.
Vishnu Vardhan and Srikrishna beat Indonesia’s Joel Hansson and Melker Bexell of Sweden 21-18, 21-14, while Bhatt and Crasto defeated Sri Lanka’s Dilmi Dias and Anurangi Masakoraka 22-20, 21-10.
Barve was beaten by Malaysia’s Eoon Qi Xuan in straight games 21-15, 21-10. Alap Mishra also lost third seed Li Shifeng of China in straight games 15-21, 12-21. Priyanshu Rajawat then lost to England’s Harry Huang 11-21, 16-21.
Kiran George, however, gave a tough fight to second seed Ikhsan Leonardo Imanuel Rumbay and even won the first game before going on to lose 21-12, 19-21, 17-21.
Men’s doubles players Manjit Singh and Dingku Singh also bowed out after losing to seventh seeds Leo Rolly Carnando and Daniel Marthin 14-21, 11-21.