Badminton, French Open Super 750: Indian campaign ends as Sindhu, Satwik-Chirag exit in Round of 16

It was a disappointing day for Indian shuttlers as PV Sindhu retired and the doubles duo of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty lost in their Round of 16 matches to end the campaign for India at the French Open Super 750 tournament in Rennes on Thursday.

This comes a day after both Kidambi Srikanth and Lakshya Sen lost their opening matches in men’s singles on Wednesday.

In the women’s singles event, Sindhu faced off against Thailand’s Supanida Katethong against whom she won in the quarter-final of the the Denmark Open last week.

The opening game between Sindhu and Katethong was quite close with the scoreline not showcasing a lead for either player. It was all level until 9-all when Sindhu went on a four-point winning streak to take a 13-9 lead. Katethong replied with equal force and also went on a string of five consecutive points to take a 14-13 lead. But Sindhu recovered quickly to dominate the latter half of the game and won the first game 21-18.

The second game started off with a 1-1 scoreline before Sindhu had to take a medical time-out for an undisclosed injury. The Indian soon decided to retire from the match and give the result to the Thai player.

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