Thailand Open: Satwik-Chirag bow out of men's doubles

Bangkok, Jan 14 The star Indian badminton pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty crashed out of the men's doubles event in the ongoing Thailand Open after suffering a straight-games defeat in their second-round contest on Thursday.

Satwik-Chirag suffered a 19-21, 17-21 defeat against the Indonesian duo of Mohammad Ahsan and Hendra Setiawan in a match that lasted 34 minutes.

The Indian duo started off well, but couldn't hold on to their lead as Ahsan and Setiawan won the tight first game 21-19. In the second game, the Indonesian duo, howeved, upped their game and eased to a 21-17 win to enter the quarter-finals.

Earlier on Wednesday, India's top-ranked men's doubles pair had fought back to beat their South Korean opponents Kim Gi Jung and Lee Yong Dae 19-21, 21-16, 21-14 in one hour and eight minutes.

Parupalli Kashyap had exited from the tournament after he retired in the third game of his first-round clash against Canada's Jason Anthony Ho-Shue owing to a calf injury.

MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila had also narrowly lost their men's doubles opening round contest 21-13, 8-21, 22-24 to Malaysian pair Ong Yew Sin and Teo Ee.

However, Olympic bronze medallist Saina Nehwal and former world number one Kidambi Srikanth won their respective first round matches and will be playing their second round clashes on Thursday.

( With inputs from IANS )