- Wednesday, March 12, 2025
The two-time Olympic medallist, returning after recovering from a hamstring injury, squandered an opening-game advantage. The women’s doubles and mixed doubles pairs won their matches
By: India Weekly
STAR shuttler PV Sindhu suffered an inexplicable meltdown on Wednesday (12) after winning the opening game to Korea’s Kim Ga Eun in the women’s singles opening round of the All England Championships.
There was however good news for India in the women’s doubles where the Commonwealth Games bronze medal winning duo of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand defeated Shuo Yun Sung and Chien Hui Yu of Chinese Taipei 21-17, 21-13 to enter the last-16.
The two-time Olympic medallist, Sindhu, returning after recovering from a hamstring injury, squandered an opening-game advantage to lose 21-19, 13-21, 13-21 to world number 21 Kim in a match that lasted just over an hour at Arena Birmingham.
Sindhu, 29, was cruising at 20-12 in the opening game but almost threw it away, allowing Kim to recover to 19-20 before eventually winning the game.
However, Sindhu’s form dipped thereafter, while Kim grew in confidence, which was reflected in her improved movement and shot selection.
Sindhu had defeated Kim in their only meeting in 2019 Hong Kong Open but was coming into the event after withdrawing from the Asia Mixed team championships due to a hamstring injury.
It was yet another disappointing result for world number 16 Sindhu, who had exited in the opening round of the Indonesia Masters in January, following a quarterfinal finish at the India Open Super 750 to start the year.
India’s Rohan Kapoor and Ruthvika Shivani Gadde, however, progressed to the second round of mixed doubles competition, prevailing 21-10 17-21 24-22 over Chinese Taipei’s Ye Hong Wei and Nicole Gonzales Chan, ranked 41st.
The duo will face fifth seeds Yan Zhe Feng and Ya Xin Wei of China next. (PTI)
