Odense (Denmark), October 17 (H.S.): India’s campaign at the Denmark Open badminton tournament came to an end on Friday after Tanvi Sharma in women’s singles and the women’s doubles pair of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand suffered quarter-final defeats.

India’s last remaining hope, Tanvi Sharma, was beaten 21-15, 21-13 by South Korea’s An Se-young, the world No. 1 and top seed, in the women’s singles quarter-final. In the 38-minute encounter, Tanvi, who is ranked 24th in the world, made a promising start but was unable to maintain her momentum.

Earlier, the Indian women’s doubles pair of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand lost 14-21, 21-17, 21-11 to Malaysia’s Pearly Tan and Thinaah Muralitharan.

The Indian pair, ranked 18th in the world, began strongly and held an 11-7 lead at the interval in the opening game. They went on to win the first game comfortably. However, the Malaysian duo, ranked fifth in the world, fought back in the second game to level the contest. Pearly and Thinaah then dominated the deciding game, leaving the Indian pair with little opportunity to stage an upset.

Earlier this month, the Malaysian pair had also defeated Treesa and Gayatri in the quarter-finals of the Asian Games in Japan, ending the Indian duo’s campaign.

Several of India’s leading players had been eliminated in the early rounds of the tournament. They included P. V. Sindhu, Unnati Hooda, the men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, Lakshya Sen and Ayush Shetty. In men’s singles, Kidambi Srikanth progressed to the second round but was defeated by France’s reigning world champion, Alex Lanier.

Indian badminton players will next compete at the French Open, scheduled to be held from October 20 to 25.

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Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar