Thailand Open: India's singles campaign ends as PV Sindhu loses in quarterfinals

India's singles campaign in the ongoing Thailand Open-ended after reigning champion PV Sindhu lost to fourth seed Ratchanok Intanon in the quarterfinals on Friday.

In an extremely one-sided game, Intanon thrashed Sindhu 13-21, 9-21 to comfortably seal a place in the semi-final, where she'll face off with top seed Tai Tzu-ying of Taiwan.

Thailand's Intanon dominated the game right from the beginning but last year's champion crawled back to level the scores at 13-all in the opening game. However, the local player bagged eight straight points to secure the first game 13-21. Intanon rose her game to another level in the second game, while Sindhu struggled to catch up.

Earlier in the day, in the men's singles category, Sameer Verma suffered a 13-21, 21-19, 20-22 loss to World No. 3 Anders Antonsen in an extremely close encounter.

Former World No. 1 Kidambi Srikanth, who kickstarted the Thailand Open with a bang by hammering his Thai opponent Thammasin 21-11, 21-11, was later forced to pull out of the tournament after his roommate Sai Praneeth tested positive for COVID-19.

On Friday, the doubles contingent of India had a terrific day as World No. 36 pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Ashwini Ponnappa defeated Olympic silver medalists and fifth seeds Chan Peng Soon and Goh Liu Ying to advance to the semifinals, where they are set to face top seeds and World No.3 pair, Dechapol Puavaranukroh and Sapsiree Taerattanachai.

Former World No. 1 and popular badminton star Carolina Marin qualified for the semi-finals after beating Turkey's Neslihan Yigit 21-6, 21-15. Carolina, who is seeded fifth in the ongoing tournament, will play the last-four round against South Korean An Se-young, a formidable teenager who was awarded "Most Promising Player" in 2019.