Indian shuttlers failed to impress on the opening day of the Taipei Open Super BWF World Tour Super 300 tournament here.
The eighth-seeded duo of Krishna Prasad and Vishnuvardhan Goud, who were the top-ranked Indians in the absence of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty in men’s doubles, made an opening-round exit going down to Vinson Chiu and Joshua Yuan of the USA.
Having lost the first game, the Indians bounced back to equalise but they lost the momentum in the decider to go down 18-21, 22-20, 16-21 in 54 minutes.
Panda sisters, Rutaparna and Swetaparna, who were the highest-ranked Indians in the women’s double draw, lost to local challengers lower-ranked Cheng Yu-Pei and Sun Wen Pei 7-21, 30-28, 12-21.
Having lost the first game tamely, the world No 68 Indians produced a tough fight in the second to bring it at level.
Down 12-17 in the second game, the Panda sisters won five consecutive points to bounce back and dished out some fine rallies to wrap up the issue 30-28.
But Cheng and Sun came back strongly in the decider and extended their lead from being 13-9 to take the match in 58 minutes.
India’s top women’s doubles duo of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand have skipped the Super 300 meet.
Veteran Saina Nehwal, who was the highest-ranked Indian in the women’s singles draw, has withdrawn alongside youngster Malvika Bansod.
Men’s top seed singles player Kodai Naraoka has also pulled out and has been replaced by Parupalli Kashyap.
The 2014 Commonwealth Games gold medallist will open his campaign against qualifier Samuel Hsiao of Germany on Wednesday.
World No 9 and in-form HS Prannoy, who made a semifinal exit in the Indonesia Open Super 1000 last week, is seeded third and will take on qualifier Lin Yu Hsien, a local challenger.
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