Ashmita Chaliha exits Malaysia Masters, India campaign ends

Indian shuttler Ashmita Chaliha’s run at the Malaysia Masters ended in the women’s singles quarterfinals after she lost to Denmark’s former European Games champion Line Kjaersfeldt in Kuala Lumpur on Friday. With Chaliha’s defeat, India’s campaign at the BWF Super 500 tournament also came to an end.

World No. 71 Chaliha started strongly and took the opening game before going down 23-21, 18-21, 11-21 to the world No. 23 Dane in a match lasting 61 minutes.

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Chaliha looked in control early and led 11-6 at the first-game interval. Kjaersfeldt fought back to level the scores at 17-17, but the Indian held her nerve to clinch the game 23-21 on her third game point.

The Indian continued her momentum in the second game and raced to a 10-5 lead. However, Kjaersfeldt slowly turned the match around, reducing the gap to 11-10 at the break before drawing level at 13-13 after the interval. The Dane then won four straight points to move ahead 18-15 and eventually took the game 21-18 to force a decider.

The third game was evenly poised at 4-4 before Kjaersfeldt dominated proceedings, opening up a 13-6 lead. Chaliha could not recover as the Dane comfortably sealed the decider 21-11.

The rest of the Indian contingent had already exited the tournament earlier. Malvika Bansod lost to Kjaersfeldt in the women’s singles second round on Thursday, while Devika Sihag suffered a 21-16, 21-13 defeat to top seed and former Olympic champion Chen Yufei of China.

India’s men’s doubles campaign also ended after MR Arjun and Hariharan Amsakarunan lost 21-14, 21-15 to China’s Hu Keyuan and Lin Xiangyi.

In mixed doubles, Sathwik Reddy Kanapuram and Radhika Sharma went down 12-21, 25-27 to American pair Presley Smith and Jennie Gai.

India had earlier endured a disappointing men’s singles campaign as Lakshya Sen and HS Prannoy were both knocked out in the opening round on Wednesday.