It was a bad day for Indian shuttlers as all of them suffered first round defeats in the China Masters BWF Super-750 tournament in Shenzhen on Wednesday. Lakshya Sen, Kidambi Srikanth, Priyanshu Rajawat and the women's doubles pair of Rutuparna Panda and Swetaparna Panda crashed out. The Pandas lost to Chinese seventh seeds Zhang Shu Xian and Zheng Yu 15-21, 9-21.
Lakshya suffered a 21-19, 21-18 defeat to China's seventh seed Shi Yu Qi. This is Lakshya's fifth consecutive first round loss as the former All England finalist is struggling for form after a health issue late last year. A late rally towards the end was not enough for Lakshya in the first game. Trailing 15-18, Lakshya scored three points but Shi prevailed. Though Lakshya equalised at 18-18 in the second game, Shi reeled off three straight points to take the match.
With this loss, Lakshya is out of the year-end Tour Finals.
Srikanth dominated world champion Kunlavut Vitidsarn in the first game, but lost his way in the second. He was in the game till 10-10 before Kunlavut scored 11 of the last 15 points to force the decider. Scoring a number of points around the net, Kunlavut came up with six points from 15-13 to win the third game. Priyanshu Rajwat failed to capitalise on lead in both games and lost 17-21, 14-21 to Kenta Nishimoto of Japan.
