Defending champion Sourabh Verma crashes out of Chinese Taipei Grand Prix

Taipei: Defending champion Sourabh Verma suffered a narrow straight-game loss against Malaysia's Lee ii Jia to crash out in the opening round of Chinese Taipei Grand Prix Gold here today.

Fourth seed Sourabh lost 19-21 20-22 to Lee in men's singles but Siril Verma, Harsheel Dani and Abhishek Yelegar notched up contrasting wins to enter the second round.

The 16th seed Siril defeated Chinese Taipei's Wei Chi Liu 21-11 10-21 21-19 in a hard-fought match, 15th seed Abhishek saw off Malaysia's Yu Ming Adam Lau 20-22 21-14 21-10, while 14th seed Harsheel sent packing Hong Kong's Lee Chak Wai 21-12 21-14 in another men's singles match.

Siril will face local shuttler Chia Hao Lee, Abhishek will meet Korea's Seung Hoon Woo and Harsheel will take on Ha Young Woong next.

However, it was curtains for Rahul Yadav Chittaboina, Kartikey Gulshan Kumar, Hemanth M Gowda and Siddharath Thakur.

Rahul gave a walkover to local shuttler En Chai Chang, Kartikey lost 19-21 19-21 to Shih Kuei Chun and Siddharath went down 16-21 16-21 to 13th seed Thai Suppanyu Avihingsanon.

Hemanth, too, fell 13-21 10-21 to 10th seeded Hsueh Hsuan Yi of Chinese Taipei.