Australian Open Badminton 2024: Indian Challenge Ends After Prannoy, Sameer, Akarshi & Sumeeth-Sikki Crash Out

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The Indian challenge in Australian Open 2024 Badminton tournament ended on Friday (June 14) after HS Prannoy, Sameer Verma, Akarshi Kashyap and doubles pair of B Sumeeth Reddy-Sikki Reddy lost their respective quarter-final matches in Sydney, Australia.

In men's singles, fifth seed and Paris Olympics-bound Prannoy went down in straight games 19-21, 13-21 to second seed Kodai Naraoka of Japan in an hour and 1 minute on court 1 at the State Sports Centre.

Earlier, Sameer Verma, who had stunned former World Champion Loh Kean Yew of Singapore in the pre-quarter-final, suffered a straight games 12-21, 13-21 loss to Chinese Taipei's Lin Chun-yi in 38 minutes on court 1.

In women's singles, eighth seed Akarshi lost in straight games 17-21, 12-21 to third seed Pai Yu Po of Chinese Taipei in 42 minutes on Court 3. That drew curtains on the Indian singles challenge in Sydney with several top names giving the tournament a miss.

Meanwhile, in the mixed doubles, Sumeeth Reddy and Sikki Reddy lost against the Chinese pair of Zhen Bang Jiang and Ya Xin Wei 21-12, 21-14 in the quarter-final round. The match lasted for 31 minutes. With this, the Indian challenge ended completely in Sydney.

Earlier on Thursday (June 13), the Australian Open Badminton 2024 tournament ended for Kiran George in men's singles as well as Anupama Upadhyaya and Malvika Bansod in the women's singles second round.

While Anupama lost 11-21 18-21 against sixth seed Putri Kusuma Wardani of Indonesia, Malvika was shown the door by another Indonesian, eight seed Ester Nurumi Tri Wardoyo 17-21 21-23. George lost 20-22, 6-21 to Japanese seventh seed Kenta Nishimoto.

It was also the end of the road for Panda sisters, Rutaparna and Swetaparna, in the women's doubles. The seventh seeded India pair were shocked 5-21 9-21 by Malaysian combination of Pei Jing Lai and Chiew Sien Lim.

In the first round, several Indians including Mithun Manjunath and S Sankar Muthusamy Subramanian were among the shuttlers to make an early exit from the BWF World Tour Super 500 tournament.