PV Sindhu retired hurt from the French Open Super 750 tournament in Rennes on Thursday due to a knee issue while leading her round-of-16 match against Thailand’s Supanida Katethong. It was also the end of the campaign for defending champions and world No.1 Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, who were defeated in a thriller by Indonesian legends Mohammad Ahsan and Hendra Setiawan, 23-25, 21-19, 19-21. According to Badminton Statistics, Sindhu took the decision to end the match with a score of 21-18, 1-1. This is possibly the first time she has retired mid-match in her career.
World No.10 Sindhu defeated Thailand’s Supanida Katethong 21-18 in the first game. However, at 1-1 in the second game, the two-time Olympic medalist overstretched herself, resulting in a knee injury. Sindhu revealed she was running on fumes towards the end of her opening-round win against Gregoria Mariska Tunjung when she had to dig deep after dropping the first game. Following successive semifinal appearances in Finland and Denmark, the Indian returned to the top ten in the world this week following a less-than-ideal start to the season.
Tough decision to withdraw, the Indian shuttler posted on her social media page after the match. In the first set, I felt something wrong in my left knee but chose to continue to play. However, the pain started to linger. I retired from the game because I felt that retiring was a wise decision to take a closer look at my knee and have my physio examine it, Sindhu added.
I have always taken pride in my career in using minimal medical breaks or injury timeouts. However, I chose to respect my body. Please don’t reach out asking for an update as I don’t have any right now, she concluded.
Later in the day, Chirag and Satwik, who were playing their first tournament as world No.1 after missing the Denmark Open the week before, engaged in an epic clash with their idols, known as the Daddies on the circuit. The Indians fought valiantly in the first game, coming back from a 13-18 deficit and saving four game points, but Ahsan and Setiawan won 25-23. Chirag and Satwik won the second game, and they led 10-7 in the decider before the former World No.1 pair turned things around. The defeats of Sindhu and Satwik-Chirag effectively ended India’s participation in the event.
