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Two-time Olympic medallist PV Sindhu crashed out of Paris Olympics 2024 after pre-quarters defeat to China's He Bing Jiao at the La Chapelle Arena on Thursday . Sindhu slumped to her Chinese counterpart by a scoreline of 19-21, 14-21 in a hard-fought R16 battle, putting an end to her Olympic medal streak. The match saw Sindhu giving a tough competition to her counterpart; however, Jiao kept scoring back-to-back points and avenged her previous Olympic loss, that came exactly three years ago, in two straight sets.
India’s top-ranked female player had earlier defeated the Chinese shuttler at the Tokyo Olympics 2020 to claim her bronze medal. In the previous round, Sindhu won against Estonia’s Kristin Kuuba on Thursday, to make it to the round of 16. She had dominated Kuuba with 21-5, 21-10 in her second and last Group M match.
In her campaign opening round, Sindhu defeated Maldives’ Fatimath Abdul Razzad with 21-19, 21-6, and it took her only 29 minutes to secure a win over her lower-ranked opponent in the Group M match. Notably, Sindhu has previously won a silver medal in the 2016 Rio Olympics and a bronze medal in the Tokyo Olympics 2020.
In the men’s category, Lakshya Sen took down compatriot and higher-ranked HS Prannoy to enter the quarterfinals round in maiden Olympic appearance. Sen handed a 21-12, 21-6 defeat in an all-India Round of 16 clash on Friday, August 1. Apart from him, Paris Olympics 2024 campaign ended for India’s ace badminton pair Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, after they suffered a heartbreaking defeat by Malaysia’s unseeded Soh Wooi Yik and Chia Aaron by 21-13, 14-21, 16-21.
