All England Badminton Championship | PV Sindhu handed defeat in first round, Treesa/Gayatri sail in next round
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India star shuttler PV Sindhu exited from the All England Open 2023 in the first round itself after she lost her match to China's Zhang Yi Man 17-21, 11-21 in straight games on Wednesday. The ninth-ranked Sindhu lost to the world no.17 shuttler without even posing a real threat to her opponent.
There was a time in the match when she had started the first game well and had a 16-13 lead too, but that moment was short-lived. Playing against the drift, the Indian lost the game from there.
Sindhu's struggle did not end there as Zhang maintained a four-point lead going into the mid-game interval. From there on it did not take long for the Indian to concede the match, and lost in 39 minutes only.
Earlier in the day, the women's doubles pair of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand, who got a major breakthrough in their career in the last edition as they entered the semifinal after being promoted from the reserves, got off to a winning start and paved a way to the second round.
They went on to beat the seventh seeds from Thailand, Jongkolphan Kititharakul and Rawinda Prajongjai 21-18, 21-14 in straight games. This was the Indians' first win over the Thai pair in five meetings. Now they will be up against the winner of the match between the Scottish pair of Julie Macpherson & Ciara Torrance and Japan's Yuki Fukushima & Sayaka Hirota on Thursday.
