Changzhou: Reigning world champion PV Sindhu made an early exit from the China Open but B Sai Praneeth kept the Indian flag fluttering with a hard-fought straight-game win to reach the men's singles quarterfinals here on Thursday.
Sindhu, an Olympic silver medallist, squandered a first-game advantage to go down 12-21 21-13 21-19 to Thailand's Pornpawee Chochuwong in a women's singles pre-quarterfinals that lasted 58 minutes here.
Praneeth, who had claimed a bronze medal at Basel, edged out China's Lu Guang Zu 21-19 21-19 to set up a meeting against Indonesian seventh seed Anthony Sinisuka Ginting.
Ginting beat India's Parupalli Kashyap 23-21 15-21 21-12 in a thrilling contest. Doubles specialist Satwiksairaj Rankireddy also had a dismal day as he suffered twin defeats, losing both the men's doubles and mixed doubles pre-quarterfinals.
In men's doubles, Satwik and Chirag Shetty, ranked 15th in the world, ran out of steam after a decent start against fourth-seeded Japanese pair of Takeshi Kamura and Keigo Sonoda and went down 19-21 8-21 in the second-round match that lasted 33 minutes.
This is the second time Satwik and Chirag have lost to the combination of Kamura and Sonoda this year. They had lost to the world no.4 pair at the Japan Open in July.
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