Thailand Masters | Indians fail to put up a fight on opening day, many crash out from tournament
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India's teen sensation Unnati Hooda and four others failed to make it to the Thailand Masters main draw and lost their respective matches in the qualifiers on Tuesday. The 15-year-old Hooda, who won Odisha Open in 2022, lost her opening qualifying match to Pornpicha Choeikeewong 17-21, 23-21, 21-16.
On the other hand, Keyura Mopati and Prerana Neeluri also lost their matches in the qualifiers, to Indonesia’s Insyirah Khan and Thamonwan Nithiittikrai, respectively. In the men's singles section, Kartikey Gulshan Kumar lost to Hong Kong’s Chan Yin Chak 21-16, 21-12 while Sathish Kumar was beaten by Taipei's Chi Yu Jen 21-18, 21-14.
Hooda had a bad day in the office as she lost her doubles match too with partner Palak Arora. The Indians lost to the South Korean team of Lee Yu Lim and Shin Seung Chan 21-15, 21-12. P S Ravikrishna and Sankar Prasad Udayakumar lost their men's doubles qualifying match to the Taipei pair of Lee Jhe-Huei and Yang Po-Hsuan 21-16, 18-21, 10-21.
Meanwhile, the only win of the day for the Indians came by the men's doubles team of Ishaan Bhatnagar and Sai Pratheek K. They beat USA’s Vinson Chiu and Joshua Yuan 21-18, 21-12. The bad day did not end there for India, as the premier women's doubles team of Gayatri Gopichand and Treesa Jolly lost 21-9, 21-10 to Japan’s Rena Miyaura and Ayako Sakuramoto.