Poor day for Indian shuttlers in qualifiers

Kuala Lumpur: It was a bad day for Indian shuttlers in the ongoing Malaysia Masters badminton tournament as not only Lakshya Sen failed to qualify for the main draw but also the men's doubles pair comprising Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty bowed out after losing in the qualifiers here on Tuesday. Lakshya went down to Denmark's Hans-Kristian Solberg Vittinghus 21-11, 18-21, 14-21 in a tough clash lasting for 49 minutes.

Meanwhile, another Indian in the men's singles event - Shubhankar Dey also failed as he too, went down 15-21, 15-21 to Malaysia's Liew Daren in just 32 minutes. India's poor outing on Tuesday continued as the men's doubles duo comprising Rankireddy and Shetty lost 15-21, 21-18, 15-21 to the lower-ranked local pair of Ong Yew Sin and Teo Ee Yi in 52 minutes.

Even the women's doubles pair of Pooja Dandu and Sanjana Santosh didn't taste success as they too lost to the Indonesian pair of Siti Fadia Silva Ramadhanti and Ribka Sugiarto 15-21, 10-21 in 30 minutes.

Later on Wednesday, star Indian shuttlers Parupalli Kashyap, Kidambi Srikanth, Sameer Verma, B Sai Praneeth, P.V.V Sindhu and Saina Nehwal will begin their campaigns. Kashyap will be up against top seed Kento Momota while Srikanth will take on second seed Chou Tien Chen of Taiwan in the men's singles first round. Sameer will face Thailand's Kantaphon Wangcharoen and Prannoy will be up against Kanta Tsuneyama of Japan. Praneeth will take on Denmark's Rasmus Gemke. In the women's singles, Sindhu will lock horns with Russia's Evgeniya Kosetskaya while Saina will be up against Lianne Tan of Belgium. IANS

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