Perhaps the last couple of weeks are the most accurate summation of PV Sindhu on the international circuit. At the Paris 2025 World Championships just the other week, she produced her best performance of the year, in a completely ruthless domination of world No 2 Wang Zhi Yi. Even her performance in the eventual quarterfinal defeat against Putri Kusuma Wardani of Indonesia was praiseworthy; she fought all the way to only lose to the better player on the day. If those results offered hope of Sindhu returning to somewhere near her best form, on Wednesday, she went down against Denmark’s Line Christophersen in three games in the opening round of Hong Kong Open Super 500 21-15, 16-21, 19-21 in 58 minutes. This is now Sindhu’s sixth round-of-32 exit of the BWF World Tour in 2025. This was also the first time Sindhu had lost against Christophersen, having held a 5-0 record coming into the contest.
There were, however, some solid results for the Indian contingent in men’s singles – a discipline where good news has been few and far between this year. Having come through the qualifying rounds on Tuesday, world No 38 Kiran George beat Singapore’s Jian Heng Jason Teh in straight games, taking just 34 minutes to overcome the shuttler ranked 24 places above the Indian, 21-16, 21-11. Kiran earned his main draw berth with back-to-back wins in the qualifiers on Tuesday. He first dispatched Malaysia’s Cheam June Wei 21-14, 21-13 and then beat compatriot S Sankar Muthusamy Subramanian 21-18, 21-14.
Then, in a 73-minute marathon, Lakshya Sen overcame the tricky Taipei shuttler Wang Tzu Wei 22-20, 16-21, 21-15.
The most impressive result on the day was HS Prannoy’s straight-games dismantling of world No 14 Lu Guang Zu of China, with the Indian veteran prevailing 21-17, 21-14 in 44 minutes. The past five meetings between Prannoy and Lu have almost always been marathon affairs, with four of those going three games. The durations of their previous matches, chronologically, are: 88 mins, 84 mins, 56 mins, 90 mins and 68 mins with the Chinese player winning four of those matches. He is an opponent who has pushed Prannoy to limits in the past but the 33-year-old, who hinted in Paris that his retirement is not far off, showed he still has it in to keep up with the younger guys.
On Thursday, he will be up against his national teammate Lakshya Sen. At one point couple of seasons back, Prannoy and Lakshya seemed to run into each other’s way an awful lot on the tour, but their 9th meeting now, comes a year after their Paris 2024 clash where Lakshya overpowered an ailing Prannoy comfortably.
In mixed doubles, Dhruv Kapila and Tanisha Crasto also couldn’t build on their quarterfinal run at the Worlds losing against the Chinese Taipei duo of Chen Cheng Kuan and Hsu Yin-Hui 16-21, 11-21 in 31 minutes. In women’s doubles, Rutaparna Panda and Swetaparna Panda won their round-of-32 match against Hong Kong’s Oi Ki Vanessa Pang and Sum Yau Wong 21-17, 21-9 in 28 minutes.
Earlier on Tuesday, fresh from their memorable podium run at the Paris World Championships, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty registered a three-game opening-round win in men’s doubles, overcoming Taiwan’s Chiu Hsiang Chieh and Wang Chi-Lin 21-13, 18-21, 21-10. Also, in men’s singles qualifiers, Tharun Mannepalli produced a strong showing agianst former No.1 Kidambi Srikanth with 28-26, 21-13 in the first round. However, he could not sustain the momentum and went down 21-23, 13-21, 18-21 to Malaysia’s fourth seed Justin Hoh in his next match to miss out on the main draw.
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