BWF World Championship | B Sai Praneeth ousted in first round, Kidambi Srikanth advances

12/13/2021

India shuttler B Sai Praneeth's poor run of form continued at the BWF World Championship 2021, as he lost his opening encounter to Mark Caljouw from the Netherlands despite winning the opening game. The 2019 bronze medal winner suffered a 17-21, 21-7, 21-18 loss against the world no.28.

Caljouw, for some time, has proved to be Praneeth's nemesis in international competitions. The Indian had lost to him during the Tokyo Olympics too in a group match.

On the other hand, Kidambi Srikanth made a winning start to his World Championship campaign, as he got the better of world no.53 Pablo Abian of Spain 21-12, 21-16 -- in 36 minutes. Now the former world no.1 will face Li Shifeng of China in the second round.

Youngster Lakshya Sen too advanced to the second round after getting a walkover from Germany’s Max Weisskirchen.

The men's doubles pair of Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy lost in the first round against Denmark’s Joel Elpe and Rasmus Kjaer 21-16, 21-15 in 32 minutes. The women’s doubles pair of Pooja Dandu and Sanjana Santosh retired through their match against Alyssa Tirtosentono and Imke van der Aar.

Meanwhile, on Monday the like of HS Pfrannoy, mixed doubles pair of Utkarsh Arora and Karishma Wadkar, men’s doubles team of MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila, and Arun George and Sanyam Shukla, will be in action.

PV Sindhu will begin her campaign later in the week against Martina Repiska of Slovakia after she got a bye in the first round.