Birmingham, March 5 (IANS): Women’s doubles specialists Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa failed to make the main draw of the $400,000 All England Open Badminton Championships at the National Indoor Arena here Tuesday.
It turned out to be a bad day for Indian shuttlers at the 104th edition of the championships as all the others also lost their respective qualifying matches.
Having received a first round bye, Jwala and Ashwini lost in the second round of qualification to Chinese pair of Jin Ma and Yuanting Tang in 54 minutes. The Chinese pair won 14-21, 21-15, 21-17.
Earlier, Mumbai’s Anand Pawar was upset by Indonesian Andre Kurniawan Tedjono 18-21, 21-13, 21-19 in the first round of the men’s singles qualifiers while Thane girl Saili Rane lost to Ireland’s Chloe Magee 21-23, 20-22 in 47 minutes.
Indonesian mixed doubles pair Gideon Markus Fernaldi and Rizki Amelia Pradipta made short work of India’s Abhishek Ahlawat and Kristi Das 21-8, 21-8 in only 14 minutes at the Super Series Premier.
All hopes will now be on Saina Nehwal and P.V. Sindhu in women’s singles and Kidambi Srikanth and Parupalli Kashyap in men’s singles, who start their campaign Wednesday.
