A poor day for Indian shuttlers got worse as Day 6 came close for the Indian contingent at the Paris Olympics with India's two-time medallist PV Sindhu suffering a loss in the Round of 16 clash on Court 3 on Thursday, August 1. China's He Bing Jiao, who had an 11-9 advantage over Sindhu in head-to-head, beat the Indian shuttler in straight sets 21-19, 21-14 to advance to the quarter-finals as the two-time Olympic medallist will return home without a medal for the first time from the Summer Games.
Sindhu fought tooth and nail in the first set as she always had a comeback ready following Bing Jiao's powerful and rapid smashes. However, Sindhu was always behind the eight ball. Sindhu would have rued her chances she missed in the first set despite keeping herself in the game with long rallies but Bing Jiao was strong enough to win it 21-19. The second set was just Bing Jiao flexing her muscles.
Sindhu won a couple of points in the second set by stretching her opponent across the court but that was a few and far between as Bing Jiao didn't let her dictate proceedings even for a moment. The match lasted for 56 minutes and Sindhu's exit meant that India have only one contender remaining as far as Badminton was concerned with Lakshya Sen reaching the quarters.
It was a disappointing day for the Indian shuttles overall as the men's doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty lost to the Malaysian pair of Aaron Chia and Wooi Yik Soh after winning the first set. HS Prannoy was up against Lakshya Sen in an all-Indian Round of 16 clash and the latter was too strong for his senior statesman. Sen is set to take on Chinese Taipei's Chen Chou in his quarter-final clash in men's singles.
