Korea Open Super 500: HS Prannoy out after second-round loss to Lee Cheuk Yiu

Yeosu: Indian badminton ace HS Prannoy made an early exit from the Korea Open Super 500 tournament as he lost his second-round match to Lee Cheuk Yiu of Hong Kong here on Thursday. World number 10 Prannoy, seeded fifth in the tournament, lost 15-21 21-19 18-21 to his opponent ranked eight places below him in a closely-contested match that lasted one hour and six minutes. In another men’s singles match, Priyanshu Rajawat gave a spirited fight against world number four and top-seeded Kodai Naraoka of Japan before losing 14-21 21-18 17-21 in a second-round match that went on for one hour 22 minutes. The Indian women’s doubles pair of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand was no match to the second-seeded South Korean opponents Na Ha Baek and Hee So Lee as they lost 11-21 4-21 in just 33 minutes in the second round. The same was in case of the Indian mixed doubles pair of Rohan Kapoor and Sikki Reddy as they lost to the fourth-seeded Chinese pair of Zhe Yan Feng and Ping Dong Huang 15-21 12-21 in 35 minutes. Olympic medallist PV Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth had lost their respective women’s and men’s singles opening round matches.