Indian Challege at Singapore Open comes to an end

New Delhi, Aug 21: The Indian Challenge at the Singapore Open badminton tournament has come to a tame end with former all England champion Pullela Gopichand, Nikhil Kanetkar and Aparna Popat losing their respective matches.
Gopichand, who was making a comeback following a niggling knee-injury, lost to 7th seed Niels Kaldau of Denmark 5-15 15-3 13-15 in the second round late last night, according to information received here today.
Kanetkar went down against Yohan Wiratana of Hong Kong 7-15 15-12 6-15 while top woman shuttler Popat was thrashed by 8th seed french woman Hongyan Pi 1-11 0-11 in just 16 minutes.
Gopichand, who made a promising start to the championship by comfortably winning his qualifying round matches and then defeating Yousuke Nakanishi of Japan 9-15, 15-2, 15-8 in the first round, failed to start well against Kaldau as he lost the first game 5-15.
But the Hyderabad-based shuttler bounced back to take the next 15-3.

In the decider, Gopichand failed to hold his nerves and lost the game and the match 13-15 in 57 minutes.

In another tie, south-paw Kanetkar played his heart out against Wiratana, who had earlier defeated 13th seed Przemyslaw Wacha of Poland 15-12 15-6 to cause the first upset of the tournament, but went down after a 72-minute encounter.

National champion Abhinn Shyam Gupta and Chetan Anand had crashed out in the first round itself while Arvind Bhat and J B S Vidyadhar were sent packing in the qualifiers.
Bureau Report