India’s Kidambi Srikanth battled hard but narrowly lost 19-21, 20-22 in his round of 16 match against Olympic gold-medallist Chen Long of China at Mulheim on Thursday.
What was more agonising for Srikanth is that he went into the lead in both the games before going down to the two-time world champion. In the first game, Srikanth took a 12-6 lead before a four-point burst from Long turned the tide in his favour. In the second game, both players reeled off points in bursts. Long was in the lead at 9-5 before the Indian shuttler bagged seven points in a row. The Chinese was still trailing 12-16 in the game, but clinched the tie with a game-changing six-point burst.
In the second round, Subhankar Dey crashed out of the tournament after losing to Hong Kong’s NG Ka Long Angus 14-21, 8-21 while Harshit Aggarwal lost 15-21,11-21 to eighth seed Hu Yun of Hong Kong.