Srikanth retires; Aakarshi, Tanya enter 2nd round in Canada Open

Kidambi Srikanth retired early from his opening match due to fitness issues, even as Tanya Hemnath and Aakarshi Kashyap emerged as the only Indian shuttlers to progress to the women’s singles second round at the Canada Open Super 300 event badminton tournament here.

The 33-year-old Srikanth, who registered a runner-up finish at the US Open Super 300 last Sunday, was lagging 10-11 against Paris Olympic bronze medallist Lee Zii Jia of Malaysia in the men’s singles opening round when he decided to throw in the towel after consulting with coach B Sai Praneeth.

Aakarshi saw off Anna Tatranova of France 21-14, 21-12 to set up a meeting with fourth seed Beiwen Zhang of the USA, while Tanya prevailed 21-16, 21-18 over USA’s Disha Gupta in another match. She will face Japan’s Riko Gunji next.

It was otherwise a dismal show for India as seven out of nine shuttlers failed to cross the opening hurdle on Wednesday.

Fifth seed Devika Sihag, who claimed her maiden BWF World Tour Super 300 title at the Thailand Masters in Bangkok earlier this year, lost 14-21, 15-21 to Chinese Taipei’s Tung Ciou-Tong in the opening round.

Rakshitha Ramraj, winner of this year’s Vietnam International Challenge, went down fighting 15-21, 21-14, 21-15 against Canada’s Rachel Chan, while Shriyanshi Valishetty, who won her maiden BWF Super 100 title at the Al Ain Masters in Abu Dhabi earlier this year, lost 9-21, 18-21 against Chinese Taipei’s Huang Ching Pi.

Anmol Kharb played out of her skin before going down 6-21, 26-24, 13-21 against home favourite and top seed Michelle Li.

In men’s singles, Saneeth Dayanand and Sankar Subramanian also fell by the wayside in the opening round.

While Saneeth, a silver medallist at the Saint Denis Reunion Open, lost 7-21, 11-21 against third seed Yudai Okimoto of Japan, Sankar’s fight ended with a 21-19, 15-21, 15-21 loss to Korea’s Yoo Tae-bin.

Achutaditya Rao Doddavarapu and Arjun Reddy Pochana, the only Indian men’s doubles pair competing in Canada, also bowed out early in the tournament.