India beaten 1-4 by Denmark in Sudirman Cup

India were beaten 1-4 by Denmark in their opening match of the Sudirman Cup mixed team badminton championship at the Carrara Indoor Sports Stadium here on Monday.

Apart from Olympic silver medallist P.V. Sindhu, who defeated Line Kjaersfeldt 21-18 21-6 in the women's singles match, no other player rose to the occasion.

In the first match of Group 1D, despite some good showing, the mixed doubles pair of Ashwini Ponnappa and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy went down to Joachim Fischer Nielsen and Christinna Pedersen 15-21 21-16 17-21 in a match which lasted around one hour.

It was also a bad day for Ajay Jayaram, as he was beaten in straight sets 12-21 7-21 by Viktor Axelsen in the mens' singles match.

In the men's doubles category, Manu Attri and B. Sumeeth Reddy also failed to win their match as they were outplayed by former Olympic silver medallists Mathias Boe and Carsten Mogensen.

In a match which lasted around 30 minutes, the Danish pair defeated the Indian duo 21-17 21-15.

With three losses, all eyes were on Sindhu as the Hyderabadi shuttler outplayed Kjaersfeldt comfortably to make it 1-3 in the tie.

The last match of the tie saw another dismal performance from the womens' doubles pair of Ashwini and N. Sikki Reddy.

The Indian pair, however gave some fight before going down to Kamilla Rytter Juhl and Christinna 21-18 15-21 21-23.

India will now take on Indonesia on Wednesday.

--IANS

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