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India’s two-time Olympic medalist PV Sindhu crashed out of the Indonesia Open 2023 badminton tournament after going down to third seed Tai Tzu Ying of Chinese Taipei in the women’s singles round-of-16 encounter in Jakarta on Thursday. Former world champion Sindhu, who won a silver medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics and a bronze medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, lost 18-21, 16-21 in a 29-minute match.
Earlier, in the semifinals of the 2021 World Championships, India’s Kidambi Srikanth defeated compatriot Lakshya Sen in straight games to reach the men’s singles quarterfinals in Jakarta on Thursday. Srikanth, who beat Lakshya in that match to reach the final of the 2021 World Championships in Huelva, Spain, won 21-17, 22-20 to qualify for the last-eight stage of this BWF after losing to Singapore’s Loh Kean Yew Became World Tour Super 1000 event with a total prize money of $1,250,000.
Playing at Istora in the Indonesian capital, Sindhu took an early lead as Tai Tzu Ying raced to a 4-0 lead. Sindhu brought the gap to 9-5 a few minutes later, but the Chinese Taipei star, a former world No. 1 just like Sindhu, extended the lead to 13-5. Sindhu fought back to reduce the gap to 17-13 and 19-17 in the end but could not prevent the third seed from winning the first game.
The score went to 6-5 in Sindhu’s favor in the second game but the Chinese Taipei shuttler took a 10-6 lead. Sindhu followed her twice to lead 15–14 and level at 16–16, before Tai Tzu Ying won the game 21=16 to seal a place in the quarter-finals.
In the first game of the men’s singles round-of-16 match, Srikanth came back after losing the lead twice and eventually won the game in a 45-minute encounter. Lakshya, ranked 14th in the world, took a 3-0 lead but Srikanth reduced it to 4-3. However, Lakshya won three more consecutive points at 8-4, before Srikanth came back in the game to make it 10-9. The two shuttlers were head to head before Srikanth, ranked 20th in the latest BWF world rankings, took a 17-14 lead.
In the semi-finals of the 2021 World Championship, what was India’s repeat #kidambisrikanth Defeated compatriot Lakshya Sen in straight games to reach quarter-finals #Indonesia Open Badminton Championship.#badminton pic.twitter.com/TfFepXi1YP– IANS (@ians_india) June 15, 2023
Although Lakshya put him at 17-all, Srikanth won the next four points to win 21-17. The second game was also a close affair as both the players fought hard for the first few points before Srikanth took an 8-5 lead over his opponent from Uttarakhand, who is currently training in Bengaluru.
Lakshya Sen helped him at 10-10 and took a 12-10 lead but Srikanth made it 13-all and then won the next six points to lead 19-12. The 30-year-old from Andhra Pradesh had six match points but Lakshya saved them all to level the scores at 20-20.
However, Srikanth could not be denied victory on Thursday as he won the next two points to win the game and the match 22-20. It will be a busy day for the Indians at Istora in the Indonesian capital as singles stars PV Sindhu and HS Prannoy, besides top doubles pair Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty will take to the courts in their respective categories at the end of the day.
