Indian ace shuttler PV Sindhu was knocked out of the Malaysian Open World Tour Super 750 tournament in the second round by Korea's Sung Ji Hyun on Thursday at Kuala Lumpur.
Sung Ji Hyun won 21-18 and 21-7 and halted Sindhu's progress in the ongoing tournament.
Lately, the Korean has got the better of Sindhu for the third time as Sindhu was also shown the exit door by Hyun even at the All England Badminton Championships 2019 and Hong Kong Open 2018.
In the Malaysian Open, the first game was a close fight between Sindhu and Hyun, with Hyun managing to win it 21-18 at the end.
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After some good rallies, Sindhu enjoyed a three-point lead at 8-5 but Sung Ji Hyun drew level with a cross-court smash. The Indian again managed to hold a 11-9 lead after the Korean went wide.
After the interval, Sung Ji erased the deficit and grabbed a 16-14 lead after Sindhu miscued two shots.
A backhand aimed at the body helped Sung Ji to move up to 19-16. Sindhu then misjudged the shuttle twice at the backline to hand over the opening game to her rival.
Fifth-seeded Sindhu was completely left lost in the second game as the Hyun piled up the pressure and convincingly dominated the Indian as she won 21-7.
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Sung Ji raced to a 5-0 lead early on before moving to 10-5. A precise down-the-line return helped her to grab a 11-6 advantage at the break. It was one-way traffic after the breather as the Korean took 10 of the next 11 points as Sindhu made some uncharacteristic mistakes.
Eventually, two unforced errors from the Indian helped Sung Ji seal the quarterfinals spot.
In the match which lasted 43 minutes, Sindhu had her chances but was unable to capitalise on them.
With Saina Nehwal and Sindhu both crashing out, the journey for India in Women's Singles at the Malaysian Open comes to an end.
With Hyun' s victory, the head-to-head record with Sindhu is now all square with 8 victories each.
In the men's single's category, eighth-seeded Kidambi Srikanth defeated Thailand's Khosit Phetpradab 21-11, 21-15 in little over half an hour to set up a meeting with Olympic champion and fourth seed Chen Long of China.
Srikanth opened up a 6-2 lead early on and then jumped to a 14-6 advantage. The Indian continued to dominate the proceedings to pocket the opening game.
Nothing changed in the second, with Srikanth again marching ahead early and holding his fort to comfortably shut out the match.
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The 26-year-old is now the lone Indian survivor in the BWF World Tour Super 750 tournament.
The mixed doubles pair of Pranaav Jerry Chopra and N Sikki Reddy lost 21-15, 17-21 and13-21 to Malaysia's Tan Kian Meng and Lai Pei Jing .
(With Agency inputs)
