BWF World Champiionships: Kidambi Srikanth makes winning start

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Bengaluru, December 12: Indian badminton ace Kidambi Srikanth beat Pablo Abian of Spain to begin his Badminton World Federation (BWF) BWF World Championships campaign on a winning note at Huelva, Spain on Sunday.

The Indian men's doubles pair of Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy, however, lost in straight games against Joel Elpe and Rasmus Kjaer of Denmark in the opening round. Attri and Sumeeth lost 16-21 15-21 in 32 minutes to make an exit from the showpiece event.

Earlier in the day, the women's doubles pair of Pooja Dandu and Sanjana Santosh retired after they lost the first game 12-21 to the Dutch duo of Alyssa Tirtosentono and Imke van der Aar.

Reigning champion PV Sindhu, who got a bye in the first round, will open her campaign against Martina Repiska of Slovakia.

A win will put the double Olympic champion against Pornpawee Chochuwong, who has defeated the Indian twice in the last two meetings.

However, her arch-rival Carolina Marin will not be participating in the event after suffering a left ankle injury. So too, 2017 winner Nozomi Okuhara.

Mentally it has been really hard to keep myself up," Marin said in a video posted on Twitter. "My priorities have always been health and wellbeing. Therefore my team and I have decided not to play the World Championships.

"We have also taken the decision of not having a formal date of comeback to competition until we are 100 per cent sure that my knee is fully recovered.

"So we will be evaluating the progress of the knee and the sensation I'm having with it daily. We believe I might be officially playing again in February or March," she said.

Sindhu has been in impressive form as she claimed her second silver medal at the season-ending World Tour Finals in Indonesia after three successive semifinals finishes at French open, Indonesia Masters and Indonesia Open.

The 26-year-old from Hyderabad will now look to cap the season with a successful defence of her maiden World championship title, which she had claimed two years ago in Basel, Switzerland.

(With PTI inputs)