Badminton Asia Championships 2024: Indian Challenge Ends As Sindhu, Prannoy & Tanisha-Ashwini Crash Out

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Indian challenge at the Badminton Asia Championships 2024 ended as early as the pre-quarterfinals after the country's top shuttlers PV Sindhu, HS Prannoy and Tanisha Crasto-Ashwini Ponnappa pair all lost their respective matches on Thursday (April 11).

Double Olympic medallist Sindhu went down fighting against Han Yue of China in a gruelling women's singles second round match by a scoreline of 18-21, 21-13, 17-21 in an hour nine minutes on court 4 at the Ningbo Olympic Sports Center Gymnasium in Ningbo, China.

Sindhu, who is desperately seeking to rediscover her form ahead of the Paris Olympics, fought back from a game down to force the decider, but her sixth seed Chinese opponent showed great resilience to beat the Indian for the first time in their sixth meeting.

In the other Indian result, the women's doubles combination of Tanisha and Ashwini lost in straight games 17-21 12-21 against third seeded Japanese pair of Nami Matsuyama and Chiharu Shida in 49 minutes on court 1.

Meanwhile, seventh seeded Prannoy also went down in straight games against Chinese Taipei's Lin Chun Yi by a scoreline of 18-21, 11-21 in the men's singles second round match that lasted 43 minutes on court 2.

Earlier on Wednesday (April 10), Olympic-bound Lakshya Sen lost 19-21 15-21 to local favourite and top seed Shi Yu Qi, while Kidambi Srikanth suffered a 14-21 13-21 loss against Indonesia's Anthony Ginting in the opening round.

Talented Priyanshu Rajawat also was no match for eight-seeded Lee Zii Jia of Malaysia, losing 9-21 13-21 in 39 minutes. MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila too was left heartbroken after losing 21-23 21-19 24-26 against seventh seeded Chinese pair of Liu Yu Chen and Ou Xuan Yi.

The other men's doubles pair of Krishna Prasad Garaga and Sai Pratheek K also lost to third seeded Chinese pair of Liang Wei Keng and Wang Chang by straight games 14-21, 17-21.

Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand too went down 2-21 11-21 to fourth seeded Liu Sheng Shu and Tan Ning in women's doubles opener to dash their faint Paris Olympics qualification hopes.

There were several others from the country, who crashed out in the opening round like Malvika Bansod, Akarshi Kashyap, Simran Singhi-Ritika Thaker, Rutaparna-Swetaparna Panda as well as the mixed doubles pair of Satish Kumar Karunakaran and Aadya Variyath.