Double Olympic medallist PV Sindhu failed to defend her Swiss Open Super 300 badminton title as she was shocked by unseeded Putri Kusuma Wardani of Indonesia in a thrilling three-game women`s singles second round match here.
World no.9 Sindhu, seeded fourth here, was stunned 15-21 21-12 18-21 by the 38th ranked Wardani in their first-ever face-off at the international level on Thursday night.
But second-seeded men`s pairing of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty kept India`s flag flying by entering the quarterfinals with a hard-fought 12-21 21-17 28-26 win over Taiwanese pair of Fang-Chih Lee and Fang-Jen Lee.
The World No. 6 Indian duo will next face Danish pair of Jeppe Bay and Lasse Molhede later on Friday.
Earlier on Thursday, World No. 9 and fifth seed H S Prannoy made a shock second-round exit after losing in straight games against unseeded Christo Popov of France.
Prannoy, favourite coming into the contest, looked a pale shadow of himself in front of World No. 40 Popov as he failed to give any fight, losing 8-21 8-21 to bow out of the men`s singles event.
Also read: PV Sindhu seeks turnaround at Swiss Open
But it was Kidambi Srikanth, who was the first to crash out on Thursday, losing to Hong Kong`s Cheuk Yiu Lee.
Going by rankings, there was hardly anything to separate the two as Srikanth is placed 20th in the World as against his rival`s 19th position.
It was a hard-fought match, but Lee kept his composure to emerge 22-20 21-17 winner in the singles pre-quarterfinal contest.
National champion Mithun Manjunath also bowed out in the second round, losing 19-21 10-21 to Chia Hao Lee of Chinese Taipei.
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