India's ace shuttler PV Sindhu continues to struggle as she has been knocked out of Japan Open in the first round itself. She lost to China's Zhang Yi Man in straight games 12-21 13-21 in just 32 minutes. Sindhu has struggled after returning from injury and has also dropped to 17th in world rankings. Her latest opponent Zhang Yi Man, ranked 18th in world, had lost to Sindhu in May in the quarterfinal of Malaysia Open.
However, the Chinese shuttler avenged for that defeat this time around knocking out India's top Badminton player in the first round. Sindhu will be hoping for a change of fortunes soon having come under the guidance of a new high-profile coach Muhammad Hafiz Hashim, the 2003 All-England champion, recently.
In another Singles match, India's Mithun Manjunath lost to Weng Hong Yang of China in a hard-fought three-set match. The match lasted for a massive 85 minutes and Manjunath went down fighting with the scoreline reading 21-13 22-24 18-21. Lakshya Sen, however, made a winning start to his campaign beating his compatriot Priyanshu Rajawat by 21-15 12-21 24-22. He will face Kanta Tsuneyama of Japan in the second round.
Meanwhile, India's star duo of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty breezed past the Indonesian pair of Leo Rolly Carnando and Daniel Marthin without much fuss. They won the battle 21-16 11-21 21-13 to storm into the second round. The world number two ranked duo will now face Jeppe Bay and Lasse Molhede of Denmark in the second round. The third seeded Chirag and Satwik recently won the Korean Open and are the favourites to win Japan Open too.
