Hong Kong Open: Srikanth in quarters, Sindhu bows out

Shuttler Kidambi Srikanth defeated his compatriot H.S Prannoy in an all-Indian men's singles clash to enter the quarter-finals while P.V. Sindhu lost the women's singles tie to crash out of the Hong Kong open tournament on Thursday.

In a marathon match of an hour and seven minutes, the fourth seed Srikanth edged past Prannoy 18-21, 30-29, 21-18 while third seed Sindhu went down to Sung Ji Hyun of South Korea 24-26, 20-22 in straight games.

After losing the first game, Srikanth bounced back in the second game in a hard-fought battle. The third game saw another intense battle between the two but Srikanth proved much better towards the end and wrapped up the issue.

The other Indian, Sameer Verma, also advanced as he got a walkover from his fifth seed Chinese opponent Chen Long.

In women's singles category, Sindhu never looked in the contention as she struggled to find her rhythm right from the start of the match.

In the first game Sindhu tried to give some fight as she took the match to the last but the second game saw much better performance from her opponent which resulted in her loss.

In mixed doubles category, Satwik Rankireddy and Ashwini Ponnappa crashed out losing to Lee Yang and Hsu of Chinese Taipei.

The Chinese Taipei duo defeated the Indians 21-17, 21-11 in just 37 minutes of play.

--IANS

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