World champion shuttler PV Sindhu, who returned to competitive action after a long gap, suffered a shocking defeat in the first round itself. She lost 21-16, 24-26, 13-21 to Denmark's Mia Blichfeldt in the opening round of YONEX Thailand Open Super 1000 event on Tuesday. Meanwhile, the team of Ashwini Ponnappa-Satwiksairaj Rankireddy has advanced to the second round of mixed doubles with a 21-11, 27-29, 21-16 win. They beat the Indonesian pair of Hafiz Faizal and Gloria Emanuelle Widjaja.
Sindhu, who last played competitively at the All England Championships in March last year, is currently ranked seventh in the world. She was defeated by Blichfeldt, who is ranked 18th. With this loss, India's campaign in women's singles ended as the other players Saina Nehwal and H.S. Prannoy also pulled out after testing positive for COVID-19 on Tuesday.
Earlier in the day, the London Olympics bronze medallist Nehwal was tested positive for COVID-19 and was sent to isolation in a hospital in Bangkok. Read about it here.
In November last year, Sindhu's ‘I retire’ post had got her fans worried. She had later put an end to all those speculations and said she was totally fit to rule the court again. She had also claimed to be in her best form, not just health-wise but also on the badminton court. She had further noted that she was looking forward to competing in the upcoming tournaments such as the Asia Cup and of course the Tokyo Olympics, IANS reported.
On being asked how she coped with the extended lockdown, the Olympic silver medallist had said that she tried to keep herself “active by working out at home” and added, “It was quite difficult to suddenly stop a very active routine. But at the same time we all realised how important it was to pause everything and take care of ourselves,” TOI reported.
Thailand Open which started today will go on till January 17.
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