It ended up being a rather poor day for India at the French Open badminton tournament in Paris on Friday as the country’s three top singles shuttlers all crashed out.
Saina Nehwal played her heart out in the opening game to try and overpower her nemesis Tai Tzu Ying but then ran out of steam in the second to suffer her 12th consecutive loss against the the world number one from Chinese Taipei. Nehwal lost 20-22, 11-21 after 36 minutes.
Kidambi Srikanth then lost for the seventh straight time – and fourth time this season – against world champion Kento Momota, before PV Sindhu was knocked out by China’s He Bing Jiao in the last match of the day.
The men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty will be India’s only representatives in the semi-finals on Saturday after they beat their compatriots Manu Atri and Sumeeth Reddy in an all-Indian quarter-final.
Satwik and Chirag won 21-17, 21-11 in just 31 minutes, continuing a great week for the young Indian duo, who beat a higher-ranked Chinese pair in the pre-quarterfinals on Thursday. They will now face top seeds Marcus Gideon and Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo from Indonesia on Saturday.
The streak continues for Saina
Nehwal, the former world No 1, had raised hopes of ending the series of consecutive losses against Tai after showing some fight in the final of the Denmark Open on Sunday. The way she started her French Open quarter-final encounter on Friday, it looked like Nehwal was primed for another fight against the Taiwanese.
Nehwal came out all guns blazing, pushing Tai to the back court and going for the booming smashes to force the issue. The game plan clearly worked as Nehwal opened up a 11-6 lead at the first break.
It looked like the Indian was finally putting Tai under pressure as the Asian Games gold medallist began making some uncharacteristic errors to concede a 9-16 lead. But as Nehwal began to tire a bit and struggled to maintain the relentless pace and accuracy, the defending champion began to turn things around one point at a time.
Tai began taking the shuttle early and started controlling the rallies a lot better. She closed the gap to just one point before Nehwal induced a couple of errors from her opponent to get four game points.
But instead of conceding the advantage and focusing on the next game, Tai raised the tempo of the rallies and clearly put Nehwal under pressure as she preferred to play safe and wait for her opponent’s error. Nehwal paid the prize of changing her game plan as the world number one clinched six straight points to snatch the game from the Indian.
At the break, Nehwal was heard admitting to P Kashyap, who was doing coaching duty, that her heartbeat clearly increased during the closing point as she felt the pressure.
Though Kashyap tried to raise her spirits by insisting that she was playing well and the game plan was clearly working, the second game turned out to be a completely one-sided affair as Nehwal had very little gas left in the tank and Tai went for the kill.
She mixed her drops and net flicks with deceptive drives and booming down the line smashes to force Nehwal into surrendering any momentum and once again underlined why she is one of the toughest players to beat on the circuit at present.
Srikanth, Sindhu also bow out
Later in the day, Srikanth put up a good fight against the top seed Momota but some sloppiness in crucial moments cost the Indian as he lost 16-21, 19-21. Srikanth brought out his natural attacking game and kept Momota on his toes in the early exchanges, but the Japanese was able to switch up a gear at will and managed to pull away when he needed to.
After losing the first game and trailing 10-17 in the second, it looked like Srikanth was down and out, before the Indian capitalised on some uncharacteristic errors from the Japanese to notch up nine straight points to take the lead. However, Momota was again able to dig himself out of the pit as he won the next four points to close out the match.
In the last match of the day, Sindhu started well against world No 7 He Bing Jiao but eventually could find no answers for the Chinese shuttler’s deceptive game and incredible reflexes while defending. Sindhu, recently promoted to world No 2, also lost in straight games 13-21, 16-21.
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