PV Sindhu lost to 17-year-old Japanese world junior champion Tomoka Miyazaki 21-16, 19-21, 16-21
Two-time Olympic medalist PV Sindhu’s run at the Swiss Open was ended by a Japanese teenager, while India’s top shuttler Lakshya Sen lost to Chinese-Taipei’s Lee Chia-Hao in the pre-quarterfinals of the tournament Super 300 in Basel.
Indian shuttlers Kidambi Srikanth, Priyansh Rajawat and Kiran George won their respective men’s singles round of 16 matches to advance to the quarter-finals on Thursday evening.
Sindhu, after bowing out in the second round of the recently concluded All England Championships, lost to 17-year-old Japanese junior world champion Tomoka Miyazaki 21-16, 19-21, 16-21, while Sen was eliminated by Lee Chia. -hao 17-21, 15-21 in just 38 minutes in the round of 16.
Srikanth, however, secured a place in the quarterfinals by defeating top seed Lee Zii Jia of Malaysia 21-16, 21-15, while Rajawat got the better of Lei La Xi of China 21-14, 21-13 to clinch a last place. eight berths.
George battled back against French shuttler Alex Lanier before winning 18-21, 22-20, 21-18 in a grueling 71-minute fight to book a place in the quarter-finals.
Srikanth will face Lee Chia-Hao, while Rajawat will face Chinese-Taipei’s Chou Tien-Chen in the round of 16. George will try to overtake Dane Rasmus Gemke to secure a place in the semi-final.
Sindhu, who appears to be returning to form after a long injury layoff, fought tooth and nail against her teenage rival before losing in the round of 16, with the Japanese shuttler relying on her youthful energy to make a statement against the double Olympic medalist.
Miyazaki, who won gold at the 2022 World Junior Championships and entered the tournament after winning her first Super 300 crown at the Orléans Masters in France last week, lost the first match 16- 21 but managed a strong comeback to earn the tie in the decider before winning in 80 minutes.
Miyazaki kept hitting those high throws to keep Sindhu at the back. The Indian had to play a lot of overhead returns and ended up making mistakes as the rallies dragged on.
In the end, the Japanese had six match points. Sindhu saved two before spraying into the net.
Earlier on Thursday, Indian women’s doubles pair of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand qualified for the quarter-finals with a straight win over compatriots Priya Konjengbam and Shruti Mishra.
The eighth seeds and Commonwealth Games bronze medalists barely broke a sweat as they brushed aside fellow Indians Priya and Shruti, ranked 75th in the world, 21-10, 21-12 in 36 minutes.
World number. Treesa and Gayatri, who share 14th place in the Olympic qualifying rankings, will face Australians Setyana Mapasa and Angela Yu in the next round.
World No. 20s Tanisha Crasto and Ashwini Ponnappa, who are 6,296 points ahead of Treesa and Gayatri in the Paris qualifying race at 12th place, lost 17-21, 16-21 to the world No. 30s Japanese Rui Hirokami and Yuna Kato.
