Treesa-Gayatri in tough spot for Paris after early exit from Spain Masters
A first-round defeat for Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand has put their 2024 Paris Olympic qualification in a tough spot.
Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand (Screengrab/BWF)
Indian women's doubles pairing of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand suffered a first-round exit in the Madrid Spain Masters Super 300 tournament on Tuesday, leaving their qualification chances for the 2024 Paris Olympics in jeopardy.
The Indian pair, seeded fifth, lost 18-21, 22-20,18-21 to USA's Annie Xu and Kerry Xu, ranked 33rd. This loss will widen the gap between Treesa-Gayatri and Ashwini Ponnappa and Tanisha Crasto, the other Indian pair in contention for a Paris Olympics berth. Ashwini and Tanisha are much better placed at the moment.
Ashwini and Tanisha are currently ranked 20th in the Race to Paris qualification rankings, while Treesa and Gayatri are placed at the 27th spot.
Among other Indians competing at the Madrid Spain Masters, Mithun Manjunath secured two thrilling wins in the men's singles qualifiers to progress to the main draw.
In the opening round, Manjunath, a former national champion, prevailed 15-21, 24-22, 21-18 against compatriot S Sankar Muthusamy, who had claimed the 2022 world junior championships silver medal in Spain.
After that, Manjunath defeated Chinese Taipei's Liao Jhuo-Fu 21-13, 21-13 to storm into the main draw. The world no. 64 Indian will face another Taiwanese in Wang Tzu Wei in the first round of the main draw.
Indian doubles pair Krishna Prasad Garaga and Sai Pratheek K outlasted Canada's Dong Adam (Xingyu) and Nyl Yakura 21-15, 28-30, 21-11 in a thrilling opener.
Sameer Verma, however, lost 10-21 14-21 to Singapore's Jia Heng Jason Teh in the qualifier. He had defeated Alvaro Leal 21-9 21-12 in the first round of the qualifiers.
Star shuttlers PV Sindhu and Kidmabi Srikanth will be in action today in their respective opening-round matches. Kiran George and Sathish Kumar Karunakaran will also start their campaign.