Denmark Open: Saina Nehwal, Kidambi Srikanth crash out in 2nd round

On an extremely bad for India's badminton hopes at the Denmark Open, top seed Saina Nehwal suffered a shock second round defeat while Kidambi Srikanth also failed to clear the second round in men's singles of the USD 650,000 Super Series Premier event.

Also making an exit was men's doubles pair of Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy.

World number one Saina lost 18-21 13-21 to world number 18 from Japan Minatsu Mitani in 39 minutes in the women's singles second round on 15 October.

World no. 5 Srikanth, who had a 1-1 record against Tommy Sugiarto of Indonesia coming into the match, failed to come up with his best game and lost 15-21 17-21 in the men's singles second round.

The top Indian men's doubles pair of Manu and Sumeeth, who reached the finals of Dutch Open last week, put up a brave fight before going down 19-21 22-20 19-21 to eight seeds Lee Sheng Mu and Tsai Chia Hsin of Chinese Taipei.

Last night, H S Prannoy went down fighting against Hsu Jen Hao of Chinese Taipei in the opening round.

World no. 16 Prannoy, who had lost to Hao at the 2011 Bulgarian International, could not exert enough pressure on his opponent and suffered a 21-23 21-19 15-21 loss in a match that lasted an hour and 21 minutes.

Prannoy had dominated most part of the opening game as he led 7-3 early on and even though Hao wrested control for a brief time at 13-12, the Indian grabbed the lead immediately with a four-point burst to move to 17-13 and then held three game points at 20-17.

But Prannoy squandered the lead as Hao surpassed him with four straight points to move to 21-20 and then sealed the game with two more points.

Bolstered by the first game, World no 24 Hao came into his own in the second and led right from the start to be 15-11 at one stage.

Prannoy, however, had other plans as he caught up with his rival after reeling off four points and after an intense battle managed to pocket the second game with three points straight from 18-19.

In the decider, Prannoy zoomed ahead to a 4-0 lead initially but Hao clawed back at 6-6 and after a battle of supremacy, he broke off from 13-13 to eventually seal the issue in his favour.

In Chinese Taipei Grand Prix tournament, 13th seed Indian Sameer Verma lost to Thailand's Khosit Phetpradab 17-21 23-21 12-21 in men's singles opening round at the Hsing Chuang Gymnasium.

-PTI