HS Prannoy through to quarters, Kidambi Srikanth crashes out of All England Open Badminton Championships

Prannoy will face Huang Yuxiang in the quarter-final.

HS Prannoy (left) and Kidambi Srikanth (right). (File pictures)

Indian shuttler Kidambi Srikanth has crashed out of the prestigious All England Open Badminton Championships in Birmingham on Thursday. He lost in the second round to Chinese Huang Yuxiang. However, HS Prannoy breezed through to the quarter-finals with an easy win over Indonesian Tommy Sugiarto.

Srikanth, the world number 3, lost to the 42-ranked Huang 21-11, 15-21, 22-20, in the match that lasted 52 minutes. If he had won this match, Srikanth would have faced compatriot HS Prannoy in the next round.

Prannoy, ranked 16, registered an easy win against Sugiarto, taking just 38 minutes to finish 21-10, 21-19. The only Indian remaining in the men's singles competition, he will now face Huang in the quarter-finals, in the last match of the day on Friday.

India's rising doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty played their heart out before losing to the second seeded Danish combo of Mathias Boe and Carsten Mogensen 21-16 16-21 23-21 in an hour and three minutes.

The day will also see Olympic silver medallist PV Sindhu go up against Japanese Nozomi Okuhara in the quarter-final. Sindhu is ranked 4 in the world, and Okuhara 7. 

Missed opportunities

Srikanth had defeated Huang to claim the 2016 Syed Modi Grand Prix Gold title but Srikanth failed to see off the unseeded Chinese at the Arena Birmingham on Thursday
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"I didn't start well but then I came back really well in both the games. I missed out on easy points in the third," Srikanth said.

"Well, there were too many service faults in opening game. I didn't expect that to happen. Yesterday I didn't get any, today it was totally changed. That should not happen in a tournament. There should be a specific rule."

The umpire couldn't find faults yesterday (on Wednesday) but today the umpire sitting found too many faults. It is ridiculous," an upset Srikanth said.

(With inputs from PTI)