Badminton World Championships: Ashwini Ponnappa,Tarun Kona knocked out in first round

IANS
Ashwini Ponnappa and Tarun Kona in action at the World Championships in Copenhagen

Copenhagen, Aug 25 (IANS) The Indian badminton squad got off to a poor start as Tarun Kona and Ashwini Ponnappa were ousted from their mixed doubles opener at the World Championships here Monday. Though Tarun and Ashwini lost the first game 16-21 to Danish World No.16 pair Anders Kristiansen and Julie Houmann, they came back strongly in the second game at the Ballerup Super Arena.

The World No.39 Indian combine gave a tough fight in the second game, but eventually went down 25-27 in a close match which lasted 46 minutes.

However, in some good news for Ashwini, she, along with her women's doubles partner Jwala Gutta, got a walkover in their opener to enter the second round as England's Heather Olver and Kate Robertshaw withdrew from the tournament.

In the second round, they have a tough match ahead when they take on Chinese fifth seeds Qing Tian and Yunlei Zhao, who have an unbeaten 6-0 record against Jwala and Ashwini.

Pranaav Jerry Chopra-Akshay Dewalkar (men's doubles), Arun Vishnu-Aparna Balan (mixed doubles) and Parupalli Kashyap (men's singles) will play their respective matches later in the day.

Quick Links

Edited by Staff Editor