Birmingham: India’s men failed to sustain their run at the All England Championships on Friday with B. Sai Praneeth, Kidambi Srikanth and all Sameer Verma losing in the second round of the singles event.
Praneeth, who had stunned two-time Olympic silver medallist and former World No.1 Lee Chong Wei of Malaysia in the opening round, lost to Hans-Kristian Vittinghus of Denmark in a three-setter.
The Indian raised visions of another upset win as he took the first set but fizzled out in the subsequent two to lose the match 21-12, 11-21, 16-21. Srikanth was no match for fourth seed Kento Momota of Japan as he went down 10-21, 13-21.
Qualifier Verma lost to eighth seed Tian Houwei of China 21-10, 12-21, 19-21.
Saina Nehwal is the only Indian in the fray at the $550,000 tournament.
Nehwal also admits that finishing runner-up in both the World and All-England championships without winning either is something she “feels sad about” — despite the fact that she is the first Indian woman to get that far and that last year she became the first Indian woman ever to become world number one.
“I’ve been carrying expectations for many years, but at the same time I know every match counts because so many people are following me. I just have to be more focused and keep working hard,” she said. “I don’t want to think about these things because sometimes it plays a major role and I then make stupid mistakes and lose a match. Then I realise I could’ve played much better so I just try to relax and not think about it too much. I try to just go with the flow,” she added.
P.V. Sindhu had crashed out of the women’s singles in the first round itself. The women’s doubles team of Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa had also made an exit in the opening round.
World number one Chen Long became the victim of a second seismic shock in less than 24 hours when his title defence was upended in the second round.
Chen was beaten 21-19, 21-17 by Xue Song.
