India open: Error-prone Srikanth ousted, Satwik-Chirag survive scare

Vinayak Padmadeo

New Delhi, January 17

Another day, another Indian prospect was shown the door due to unforced errors. After Lakshay Sen’s early exit yesterday, it was the turn of Kidambi Srikanth to return to the drawing board after tasting defeat in the first round of the India Open Super 750 tournament.

Hong Kong’s Lee Cheuk Yiu beat Srikanth 24-22 21-13 in 47 minutes. The former world No. 1 Indian was very comfortable in the first game as he varied the pace of his strokes and drops to race to 9-5. While world No. 18 Lee kept plugging the gap, Srikanth was always in control and in the lead. At 15-11, when it looked like Srikanth would pull away, the errors column started to stack up.

Lee capitalised and went ahead 18-17. While Srikanth saved three game points and came within a point to close out the game with a jump smash while leading 22-21, he was finely edged out by two deceptive drop shots by Lee.

The second game started just like the first had ended, with the Indian committing a flurry of unforced errors as Lee raced to a 9-2 lead very quickly. From then on, Srikanth only played catch-up as his higher-ranked opponent kept mixing up his strokes to stay ahead in the match. Whether it was a quick exchange of net strokes or drawn out rallies, Srikanth was always a distant second. To his credit, he did claw back, but Lee closed out the match.

Srikanth credited Lee but also highlighted how unforced errors have been costly of late. “I have been making quite a lot of unforced errors again,” Srikanth said. “And even at the beginning of the second game, I did that quite a lot, but again I am somebody who really likes to take on points. I don’t really play safe and this is the downside of it. If I can cut down on some of those, I think it will make a big difference,” he added.

Fight continues

The Indian fans had something to cheer about as the men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty won its opening encounter.

Satwiksairaj and Chirag, who are currently ranked world No. 2, registered a hard-fought victory against a tricky Chinese Taipei pair of Lee Fang-Chih and Lee Fang-Jen. The Indians won 21-15 19-21 21-16.

“We are really happy with the way we are playing and the way we have started,” Satwiksairaj said. “We have worked a lot on our defence over the past two years and it has brought a new facet in our armour because you can’t always rely on your attack in these slow conditions. We are happy to get that first win here and hopefully we go deep into the tournament,” he added.

In women’s doubles, Tanisha Crasto and Ashwini Ponnappa were beaten 5-21 21-18 11-21 by Thailand’s Jongkolphan Kititharakul and Rawinda Prajongjai.