Denmark Open: PV Sindhu, Lakshya Sen crash out in first round

P V Sindhu and Lakshya Sen made early exits while Kidambi Srikanth and Tanvi Sharma advanced to the second round of the Denmark Open badminton tournament with hard-fought wins in their respective singles events here on Tuesday.

Sindhu lost to lower-ranked Yvonne Li of Germany 21-13, 23-25, 19-21 in her women's singles first-round match, which lasted one hour and five minutes at the SJF Bank Arena.

Two-time Olympic medallist Sindhu, a former world champion, had arrived in Denmark with mixed results, having won the Japan Open Super 750 title in July before reaching the quarterfinals of last week's Arctic Open, where she went down fighting against Thailand's Ratchanok Intanon in three games.

Sen lost to third seed Chou Tien Chen of Chinese Taipei 18-21, 21-13, 15-21 in the men's singles first-round match, which lasted one hour and three minutes.

In another men's singles first-round match, Srikanth needed 46 minutes to prevail over Arnaud Merkle of France 22-20, 21-19. He will face seventh seed Alex Lanier of France in the pre-quarterfinals of the Super 750 tournament. Srikanth had won the title here in 2017.

Tanvi also had to toil hard in her 21-17, 16-21, 21-19 win over Natsuki Nidaira of Japan in the women's singles first-round match that lasted one hour and 12 minutes. The Indian will play against Yvonne Li of Germany next.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Bridge Desk. It is published from a syndicated feed.)