Badminton: Srikanth, Sameer crash out of Hong Kong Open

Indian shuttlers Kidambi Srikanth and Sameer Verma lost their respective men's singles quarter-final matches to bow out of the Hong Kong Open here on Friday.

The fourth seed Srikanth lost to eighth seed Kenta Nishimoto of Japan 21-17, 21-13 in straight games while Sameer went down to local player Lee Cheuk Yiu.

Srikanth never looked in contention as the Guntur player was struggling right from the start in a match which finished in 44 minutes.

In both the games, his opponent was better in all departments of the game.

In the other match, Yiu edged past Sameer 21-15, 19-21, 21-11 in a marathon match of an hour and 13 minutes.

After losing the first game, Sameer bounced back in second game through some brilliant work but in the third game his opponent raced away with the points and clinched the game with ease to enter the semi-finals.

With this result, India's campaign at the Hong Kong open ended.

--IANS

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