BWF World Championships 2022: Sai Praneeth makes first-round exit

Although the women’s doubles pairing of Ashwini Ponnappa and N. Sikki Reddy won, while women’s singles player Malvika Bansod lost in the first round.

B. Sai Praneeth loses to Chou Tien Chen in the first round of the BWF World Championships 2022 on Monday at Metropolitan Gymnasium in Tokyo. | Photo Credit: AFP

B. Sai Praneeth made a first-round exit from the BWF World Championships 2022 on Monday in Tokyo. The unseeded Indian went down fighting against Chou Tien Chen in a three-game contest.

Tien Chen won the first game 21-15 before Sai Praneeth - the bronze medallist of the 2019 edition - fought back to take the second game.

In the deciding third game, however, fourth seed Tien Chen made the most of the Indian's unforced errors to take a 10-4 lead.

Praneeth did try to make a comeback, but his effort was cancelled out by a nibble-footed Tien Chen, who took the game 21-15 to win the match and advanced to the second round.

This was Sai Praneeth's fifth straight defeat to the Chinese Taipei shuttler.

Earlier, women's doubles duo of Ashwini Ponnappa and N. Sikki Reddy advanced to the second round with a straight-game (21-7, 21-9) win. The world no. 25 Indian pair routed Maldives' A.N. Abdul Razzaq and F. Abdul Razzaq in just 21 minutes.

In mixed doubles, Tanisha Crasto and Ishaan Bhatnagar defeated German combo of Patrick Scheiel and Franziska Volkmann 21-13 21-13 in 29 minutes to make it to the second round of the Championships.z

Later in the day, the men’s doubles pair of Manu Attri and B. Sumeeth Reddy and women’s singles shuttler Malvika Bansod lost in their respective first-round matches.

Manu and Sumeeth suffered a 21-11, 19-21, 21-15 defeat to Japan’s Hiroki Okamura and Masayuki Onodera, while Malvika had a nightmarish debut, losing to Line Christophersen 21-14, 21-12.