Saina crashes out of Philippine Open; Chetan, Sridhar follow suit

Manila, July 18 (UNI) Defending champion Saina Nehwal made a shock first round exit from the Philippine Open badminton championship women's singles with a straight set loss to qualifier Zhu Jingjing of China here today.

The world number 29 Indian lost 15-21, 13-21 to the Chinese opponent who is ranked more than 200 places below her.

Saina had won the singles title in May last year as an unseeded player, beating Wong Pei Xian Julia of Malaysia 21-17, 21-14 in the final, to become the first Indian woman to win a four star event.

It was also a disappointing day for India as Chetan Anand and Anup Sridhar crashed out of the Grand Prix Gold tournament with straight set first round defeats in men's singles.

Anand was no match to 14th seeded Kay Bin Yeoh of Malaysia in his 10-21, 15-21 loss while Sridhar put up a good fight in the first game against Tommy Sugiarto of Indonesia before losing 19-21, 14-21.

Only Anand Pawar saved the day for the Indians as he drubbed Juergen Koch of Austria 21-8, 21-13.

Other Indians in the fray, Ajay Jayaram, Nikhil Kanetkar and P Kashyap also bite the dust. While Jayaram gave a scare to top seed Chen Hong of Hong Kong before losing 19-21, 17-21, his other compatriots were simply outplayed by their opponents.

Kanetakar was thrashed by 16th seed Ng Wei of Hong Kong 13-21, 14-21 while Kashyap did a shade better in his 18-21, 12-21 loss to sixth seed Sony Dwi Kuncoro of Indonesia.

With Saina's loss, no other Indian women remained in the fray as none could get past qualification round.

In the qualification matches, only Aparna Balan could reach the final round before losing to Mi Zhou of Hong Kong 16-21, 9-21 and fail to make it to main draw.

Jwala P Gutta reached the third round where she lost 14-21, 7-21 to Wang Yihan of China while Shruti Kurian got the drubbing from Zhu Jingjing of China 7-21, 8-21 in the second round.

Aditi Mutatkar did not turn up for her qualification first round tie against Irene Chiu of Philippines.

Saina will turn up for women's doubles and she and Aparna Balan will play Indonesian pair of Meliana Jauhari and Shendy Puspa Irawati in the opening round.

In men's doubles, Rupesh Kumar and Thomas Sanave face Chieh Min Fang and Sheng Mu Lee of Chinese Taipei.

In mixed doubles, Aparan Balan and V Diju qualified for the main draw beating Irene Chiu and Jamie Junio of Philippine 21-10, 21-13 in the final round. They will take on Chinese Taipei pair of Shao Chieh Cheng and Chia Hsin Tsai in the first round.

UNI