Sindhu exits, Satwik-Chirag duo enters quarters of Swiss Open
Basel (PTI): Double Olympic medallist PV Sindhu failed to defend her Swiss Open Super 300 badminton title as she was shocked by unseeded Putri Kusuma Wardani of Indonesia in a thrilling three-game women's singles second round match here.
World no.9 Sindhu, seeded fourth here, was stunned 15-21 21-12 18-21 by the 38th ranked Wardani in their first-ever face-off at the international level on Thursday night.
But second-seeded men's pairing of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty kept India's flag flying by entering the quarterfinals with a hard-fought 12-21 21-17 28-26 win over Taiwanese pair of Fang-Chih Lee and Fang-Jen Lee.
The world No. 6 Indian duo will next face Danish pair of Jeppe Bay and Lasse Molhede later on Friday.
Earlier on Thursday, world No. 9 and fifth seed H S Prannoy made a shock second-round exit after losing in straight games against unseeded Christo Popov of France.
Prannoy, favourite coming into the contest, looked a pale shadow of himself in front of world No. 40 Popov as he failed to give any fight, losing 8-21 8-21 to bow out of the men's singles event.
But it was Kidambi Srikanth, who was the first to crash out on Thursday, losing to Hong Kong's Cheuk Yiu Lee.
Going by rankings, there was hardly anything to separate the two as Srikanth is placed 20th in the world as against his rival's 19th position.
It was a hard-fought match, but Lee kept his composure to emerge 22-20 21-17 winner in the singles pre-quarterfinal contest.
National champion Mithun Manjunath also bowed out in the second round, losing 19-21 10-21 to Chia Hao Lee of Chinese Taipei.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Rickelton's ton in vain as SRH beat MI by 6 wickets
Mumbai (PTI): Ryan Rickelton's whirlwind unbeaten ton was overshadowed by Heinrich Klaasen's unbeaten 65 as Sunrisers Hyderabad defeated Mumbai Indians by six wickets in an IPL match here on Wednesday.
Chasing an imposing 244-run target, Travis Head (76 off 30) and Abhishek Sharma (45 off 24) shared 129 runs for the opening wicket to set the platform for SRH.
Klaasen (65 not out off 30 balls) then displayed his all-round hitting abilities to guide SRH home with the help of Nitish Kumar Reddy (21) and Salil Arora (30 not out off 10) in 18.4 overs.
Earlier, Rickelton's knock powered MI to 243 for five.
MI rode on a 93-run stand between Rickelton (123 not out off 55 balls) and Will Jacks (46 off 22) in 7.1 overs for the opening stand to power the side.
MI skipper Hardik Pandya scored a valuable 31 off 15 balls before being dismissed.
Praful Hinge (2/54), Eshan Malinga (1/29), Sakib Hasan (1/39) and Nitish Kumar Reddy (1/31) were the wicket-takers for SRH.
Brief Scores:
Mumbai Indian: 243 for 5 in 20 overs (Ryan Rickelton 123 not out; Praful Hinge 2/54).
Sunrisers Hyderabad: 249 for 4 in 18.4 overs (Travis Head 76, Heinrich Klaasen 65 not out; AM Ghazanfar 2/51).
