PV Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth lead India’s charge at the Madrid Masters, Satwik-Chirag bow out due to injury concerns

PV Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth are shouldering the Indian dreams in Madrid as they have won their respective opening round matches but star Indian duo of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty bowed out of the tournament.

The star Indian men’s doubles pairing who bagged the Swiss Masters a few days ago suffered a major blow when they had to withdraw from the first game of the Madrid Masters after Satwiksairaj Rankireddy got injured.

The Swiss Open winners had to withdraw their first round clash against Japan Ayato Endo and Yuta Takei.

However joy for Indian badminton lovers as PV Sindhu won her opening round comfortably. She made light work of Switzerland’s Jenjira Stadelmann 21-10, 21-4. This comes after her dismissal from the top 10 BWF Rankings for the first time since November 2016.

There has been a lot of negativity for Sindhu ever since she returned from injury. So she will hope to give her doubters some answers at the Madrid Masters.

Meanwhile another talented pairing of Gayatri Gopichand and Treesa Jolly who reached the finals of the All England faced an early exit in Spain. The Indian talented women’s doubles pairing were defeated by a Japanese pair of Rena Miyaura-Ayako Sakuramoto 21-18, 21-16.

However former World No. 1 shuttler Kidambi Srikanth somehow managed to avoid elimination. It was a roller coaster ride for the Indian fans as Srikanth toiled hard against Sitthikom Thammasin of Thailand. He was almost on the verge of victory when he Sitthikom saved the match points. Later the Indian held his nerve to save match points in the third game, before finally winning 21-11, 25-27, 23-21. In the decider Srikanth had a comfortable 11-5 lead but allowed his opponent to comeback and get to match points. But Srikanth’s perseverance saw him take the game eventually as he progressed to the next round.

Srikanth will be facing Sai Praneeth in an all Indian clash in the Men’s Singles second round at the Madrid Masters.