Indian shuttlers had a disastrous start in the Asian Badminton Championship at Johor Bahru, Malaysia, on Wednesday, none of their men and women surviving in the singles competition on the first day itself.
The Indian challenge folded in the men's and women's singles in the last qualifying event before the Beijing Olympics.
The day began with the highest-ranked Indian, Anup Sridhar, and Chetan Anand crashing out of the men's singles after straight games first round defeats.
Sridhar, who recovered from an injury recently, gave little opposition to seventh-seeded Sung Hwan Park of Korea and lost 9-21, 13-21.
Chetan, who was a losing finalist in the India Open Grand Prix last month, lost his first round match 19-21, 24-26 to Hiroyuki Endo of Japan after a 47-minute contest.
The loss virtually ended world No 47 Anand's chances of making it to the Beijing Olympics from the final qualifying event for the quadrennial mega event.
Sridhar still has a chance of making it to Beijing as he is ranked 24th in the world and the top 38 in the May 1 rankings list get automatic qualification.
Anand Pawar was also no match for 10th seed Simon Santoso of Indonesia, losing 16-21, 9-21 in 34 minutes.
P Kashyap went the farthest in the singles as he came from behind to beat Chinese Yi Lu 11-21, 21-17, 21-10, but hit the proverbial wall in third seed Chunlai Bao of China and went down 13-21, 16-21 in the second round.
In the women's singles, all the three Indian shuttlers lost their first round matches.
Eighth-seeded Saina Nehwal was expected to at least go past the first hurdle, but the highest-ranked Indian woman lost 15-21, 21-16, 17-21 to unseeded Malaysian Julia Pei Xian Wong.
Aditi Mutatkar nearly pulled off an upset victory over third seed Pui Yin Yip of Hong Kong but was unlucky to lose 21-14, 12-21, 20-22 in a 52-minute thrilling contest that went down to the wire.
Mutatkar could not inspire Trupti Murgunde, who went down tamely 11-21, 14-21 in 26 minutes to Porntip Buranaprasertsuk of Thailand.
The Indian challenge is now only in the men's and women's doubles and mixed doubles.
In mixed doubles, V Diju and Jwala Gutta made it to second round after a 21-17, 23-21 victory over the Korean pair of Sang Hoon Han and Yu Mi Hwang. That set up a match against Indonesia's Anggun Nugroho Endang
Nursugianti in the second round on Thursday.
In the men's doubles, Rupesh Kumar and Sanave Thomas will play against the fourth-seeded Indonesian pair of Alvent Yulianto Chandra and Luluk Hadiyanto, while Jwala Gutta and Shruti S Kurian will take on Fan Frances Liu and Yu Yan Vanessa Neo of Singapore in the women's doubles on Thursday.
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