Ashwini-Tarun ousted from World Championships

The Indian badminton squad got off to a poor start as Tarun Kona and Ashwini Ponnappa were ousted from their mixed doubles opener at the World Championships here Monday.

Though Tarun and Ashwini lost the first game 16-21 to Danish World No.16 pair Anders Kristiansen and Julie Houmann, they came back strongly in the second game at the Ballerup Super Arena.

The World No.39 Indian combine gave a tough fight in the second game but eventually went down 25-27 in a close match which lasted 46 minutes.

However, in some good news for Ashwini, she, along with her women's doubles partner Jwala Gutta, got a walkover in their opener to enter the second round as England's Heather Olver and Kate Robertshaw withdrew from the tournament.

In the second round they have a tough match ahead when they take on Chinese fifth seeds Qing Tian and Yunlei Zhao, who have an unbeaten 6-0 record against Jwala and Ashwini.

Pranaav Jerry Chopra-Akshay Dewalkar (men's doubles), Arun Vishnu-Aparna Balan (mixed doubles) and Parupalli Kashyap (men's singles) will play their respective matches later in the day.