India's double Olympic medallist PV Sindhu has lost her women's singles pre-quarterfinals against China's He Bing Jiao in the women's singles pre-quarterfinals. Sindhu was the only Indian competing in the Paris who have clinched two medals in two different editions in the history of the Olympics.
She lost a straight game against China's world number six He Bingjiao in the women's singles. The 29-year-old from Hyderabad failed to mount a consistent attack and was outpaced 21-19 21-14 by Bingjiao in a 56-minute round of 16 clash, which was a rematch of the Tokyo Olympic bronze medal play-off.
Sindhu, who won the silver and bronze medals at the Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo editions, had topped the group to qualify for the knockout stage.
Earlier, in-form Lakshya stayed on course for a maiden Olympic medal but Satwik and Chirag's dreams came crashing down after a heartbreaking three-game loss in the men's doubles quarterfinals. One of the favourites for the gold medal, reigning Asian Games and Commonwealth Games champions, Satwik and Chirag, squandered the first-game advantage to go down 21-13 14-21 16-21 in a hard-fought quarterfinal against world
number 3 duo of Aaron Chia and Soh Wooi Yik of Malaysia.
Sen brought some cheers back to the Indian camp after registering a comfortable 21-12 21-6 win over a visibly tired HS Prannoy in an all-Indian pre-quarterfinals contest to become only the third male player ever from the country to reach the last-eight of the Olympics badminton competition.
The 22-year-old from Almora joined Parupalli Kashyap and Kidambi Srikanth, who had reached the quarterfinals in the London and Rio edition of the Olympics in 2012 and 2016 respectively. Currently ranked 22, Sen will face 12th seed Chinese Taipei's Chou Tien Chen in the quarterfinals.
With PTI inputs
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