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4th seed Kidambi Srikanth has crashed out of the Australian Badminton Open. Following a tenuous previous victory against Hans-Kristian Vittinghus of Denmark, where Srikanth appeared not to be able to sustain the upper hand consistently, he was pitted against World No. 10 Tian Houwei of China.
Srikanth took the first game against Tian 21-18. However, the next game was won by Tian 21-17. The Chinese player built on this and won the next game convincingly – 21-13 against Srikanth, ending the game and with it, Srikanth’s run at the Australian Open. Houwei beat Srikanth the last time the pair faced off, which was in Malaysia in February.
Earlier today, Indian doubles pair Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa were up against the 4th seeded Indonesian doubles pair of Greysia Polii and Nitya Maheswari and lost in straight games – 21-14, 21-10.
As the Gutta-Ponnappa pair, P.V Sindhu, Parupalli Kashyap and now K. Srikanth have all crashed out of the Australian Open, Saina Nehwal remains the only Indian competitor at the tournament, and India’s hopes at the contest now rest entirely on her.
She plays Sun Yu of China, with whom she has faced off 4 times, winning 3 of their contests.
