Badminton: Indian challenge ends in Philippine Open

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Manila, July 20: Indian challenge ended in the Philippine Open badminton championship with men's doubles pair of Rupesh Kumar and Thomas Sanave losing their second round match in straight sets on the third day here today.

The Indian duo went down fighting to fourth seeded Albertus Susanto Njoto and Yohan Hadikusumo Wiratama of Hong Kong 22-24, 16-21.

Indians have had a disastrous show in the tournament. In the women's singles, defending champion Saina Nehwal crashed out of the Grand Prix Gold tournament in the first round.

Aparna Balan, Jwala P Gutta, Shruti Kurian and Aditi Mutatkar were eliminated in the qualification stages of women's singles.

It was no better for men shuttlers. Except Anand Pawar, none could get past first round in singles. Chetan Anand, Anup Sridhar, Ajay Jayaram, Nikhil Kanetkar and P Kashyap had exited out of the tournament with straight set first round defeats.

Pawar reached second round where he lost to top seed Chen Hong of Hong Kong.

The mixed doubles pair of Aparna Balan and V Diju could also get past the first round, beating Chinese Taipei duo of Shao Chieh Cheng and Chia Hsin Tsai only to lose in the next round to Kunchala Voravichitchaikul and Songphon Anugritayawon of Thailand.

In women's doubles, Saina Nehwal and Aparna Balan had lost to Indonesians Meliana Jauhari and Shendy Puspa Irawati 14-21, 14-21 in the first round.

UNI