Kidambi Srikanth goes down in Denmark Open, India's campaign ends

Odense (Denmark), Oct 17: Top Indian shuttler Kidambi Srikanth crashed out of the Denmark Open badminton tournament after he was defeated by Chou Tien Chen of Chinese Taipei with a 22-20, 13-21, 16-21 defeat in the men’s singles quarterfinals here.

 

 

Initially, Srikanth put up a good fight but in the next two sets world number.2 Taipei player came back after losing the nail-biting first game. In the next two sets, Srikanth could not get a hold of the momentum and lost the game that lasted almost for an hour.

 

Srikanth took the early lead at 7-4 but Chen fought back to 11-10 midway into the first game. The Indian made his way back to 19-19 and then 20-20 before taking the first game 22-20. The second game saw Chen dominating Srikanth as the Taipei player zoomed ahead from 10-9 to win it 21-13 and take the match to the decider. The Indian was looking good in the decider but seemed to have lost way later. Chen left the Indian behind to take the third game and wrap up the match.

 

With this defeat of Srikanth, seeded fifth, India’s campaign ended in the USD 750,000 Super 750 tournament, the only world tour event happening this year in the badminton calendar due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Earlier, Lakshya Sen had lost in the second round on Thursday while Subhankar Dey and Ajay Jayram had made first-round exits.