Hong Kong Open: Saina, Jayaram beaten; Kashyap retires

Hong Kong, Nov 22 (IANS) It was a bad day in office for Indian shuttlers as Saina Nehwal, Parupalli Kashyap and Ajay Jayaram went out in the second round of the $250,000 Hong Kong Open Super Series here Thursday.

Women’s singles third seed Saina lost out to China’s Ling Wang in straight games in 37 minutes to end her campaign at the Hong Kong Coliseum. The London Olympics bronze medallist lost 19−21, 15−21 in the final Super Series of the season.

The first game was a neck−and−neck tie till 18−all before the Chinese pulled away while the second was dominated by Wang.

The Chinese led right from the start and Saina just could not match her pace and lost the second game in a jiffy. With this win, qualifier and former World No.1 Wang extended her head−to−head to 4−2.

In men’s singles action, London Olympics quarterfinalist Parupalli Kashyap had to retire nine minutes into his match against Indonesian Tommy Sugiarto when the score read 11−6 in favour of the latter.

Mumbai’s Ajay Jayaram also went out to World No.1 Lee Chong Wei of Malaysia but not before giving a tough fight to the top seed. The World No.32 lost 18−21, 19−21 in 35 minutes and Lee won his fifth match over Jayaram in as many encounters.

In was also the end of the Indian challenge in the doubles events.

In women’s doubles, Pradnya Gadre and Ashwini Ponnappa lost to Thailand’s Duanganong Aroonkesorn and Kunchala Voravichitchaikul 17−21, 18−21 in 29 minutes in the second round in their first ever meeting.

In the mixed doubles category, Chinese top seeds Chen Xu and Jin Ma beat Pranaav Chopra and N. Siki Reddy 21−16, 21−10 in 31 minutes in their first ever encounter.

IANS 2012-11-22 17:44:32