The Indian Women’s badminton double pair of Gayatri Gopichand and Tressa Jolly, who reached the semi-finals at All England Open in Birmingham last week, crashed out in the first round of Swiss Open 2023 in Basil on Tuesday.
Gayatri Gopichand and Treesa Jolly, lost 21-14, 21-14 to second seeds Apriyani Rahayu and Siti Fadia Silva Ramadhanti of Indonesia. Earlier, Malvika Bansod beat USA’s Lauren Lam 21-17, 21-7 in the women’s singles qualifiers to advance to the main draw. In another qualifying match, Aakarshi Kashyap got a bye into the main draw. Meanwhile, India’s veteran doubles player Ashwini Ponnappa lost both her mixed doubles and women’s doubles qualification matches on the day.
In the mixed doubles qualifier, Ashwini Ponnappa, partnering Sumeeth B Reddy, went down 22-20, 21-12 to Chiu Hsiang-Chieh and Lin Xiao Min of Chinese Taipei.
Ashwini Ponnappa and Tanisha Crasto lost in the women’s doubles qualifiers after going down 21-19, 21-15 to China’s Du Yue and Xia Yu Ting. However, the doubles pair of N Sikki Reddy and Arathi Sara Sunil made it to the main draw with a hard-fought 21-15, 15-21, 21-18 win over Lauren Lam and Paula Lynn Cao Hok of the USA.
In the men’s singles qualifiers, Meiraba Luwang Maisnam and Priyanshu Rajawat failed to qualify for the main draw. While Meiraba beat Spain’s Luis Enrique Penalver 21-16, 21-16 in round 1, he lost 13-21, 25-23, 20-22 to Netherland’s Joran Kweekel in the next round. Priyanshu lost 21-7, 21-5 to Chinese Taipei’s Chia Hao Lee in the first round.
In other results, the men’s doubles pair of Rohan Kapoor and Sumeeth B Reddy crashed out in the qualifiers after losing 21-15, 22-20 to Malaysia’s Boon Xin Yuan-Wong Tien Ci. In mixed doubles, Rohan Kapoor, partnering N Sikki Reddy got past the German pair of Patrick Scheiel and Franziska Volkmann 21-17, 15-21, 21-18 to reach the main draw.
The men’s doubles pair of MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila went down 21-17, 18-21, 11-21 to Japan’s Akira Koga and Taichi Saito in the first round of the main draw. (ANI)
