Swiss Open 2023: Defending champion PV Sindhu crashes out in 2nd round, HS Prannoy and Kidambi Srikanth exit

It was a rough day for India at the Swiss Open 2023 on Thursday, 23rd March as ace shuttles PV Sindhu, HS Prannoy and Kidambi Srikkanth exited from the competition.

Mithun Manjunath also bowed out from the competition in the second round, meaning that India’s singles challenge at the Swiss Open has ended.

Sindhu, the defending champion, lost to Indonesia’s Putri Kusuma Wardani in three games with a scoreline of 15-21, 21-12, and 18-21 as her poor run in 2023 continued.

The Commonwealth Games champion was dominated by the 20-year-old Wardani in the first game of the match. The second game started in a similar fashion with Sindhu trailing 6-7 at one point. But the Indian ace rallied back to take an 11-10 advantage into the break.

After the break, Sindhu completely dominated and outscored her opponent and took the game 21-12 to push the match into the final game.

Wardani was in full control of the third game and raced to an 11-5 lead at the break. Sindhu once again showed her resilience and came back into the contest, making 12-16 at one point. However, Wardani was too strong on the day and ended up winning the game and the match.

Prannoy had a day to forget on Thursday as he was defeated by Christo Popov in straight games with a resounding scoreline of 8-21, 8-21. The 30-year-old Indian ace was one of the favorites heading into the competition. But he looked like a pale shadow of himself on Wednesday as he was soundly beaten by Popov.

Srikanth put up a brave fight against Hong Kong’s Cheuk Yiu Lee but ultimately had to take the loss on the day. The Indian ace was defeated 22-20, 21-17 in his second-round match.

Manjunath bowed out of the Swiss Open in the second round after his straight games loss to Chinese Taipei’s Chia Hao Lee. Lee defeated the Indian shuttler 21-19, 21-10 to advance to the next round.

There was some joy for the Indian fans in the men’s doubles event as the duo of Satwik and Chirag progressed to the quarterfinals of the competition with a 12-21, 21-17, and 28-26 win over Chinese Taipei pair Fang-Chih Lee and Fang-Jen Lee.