World No. 9 and fifth seed H.S. Prannoy made a stunning second-round exit from the Swiss Open Super 300 badminton tournament after losing in straight games to unseeded Christo Popov of France here on Thursday.
Prannoy looked a pale shadow of himself in front of the world No. 40 Popov as he failed to give any fight, losing 8-21, 8-21 to bow out of the men’s singles event.
Earlier, Kidambi Srikanth lost to Hong Kong’s Cheuk Yiu Lee.
Going by rankings, there was hardly anything to separate the two as Srikanth is placed 20th in the world, against his rival’s 19th position.
It was a hard-fought match, but Lee kept his composure to emerge 22-20, 21-17 winner in the singles pre-quarter final contest.
National champion Mithun Manjunath also bowed out in the second round, losing 19-21, 10-21 to Chia Hao Lee of Chinese Taipei.
Two-time Olympic medallist and fourth seed PV Sindhu made a positive start to her title defence on Wednesday, beating Jenjira Stadelmann of Switzerland 21-9, 21-16 in a lopsided opening round women’s singles match.
