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India's rising shuttler Unnati Hooda bowed out of the China Masters 2026 in the first round, with a loss to world number 12 Kim Ga-eun in the women's singles opening round on Tuesday at Shenzhen.
The 18-year-old, ranked world number 25, lost to Kim 21-10, 21-18 in 37 minutes at Shenzhen Sports Centre Gymnasium in China, as per Olympics.com. Kim raced to a 4-0 lead in the opening game and raised her advantage to 11-3 in the mid-game interval. The South Korean maintained control after the break and won the first game. In the second game, Unnati bounced back well, with a 3-0 lead, but Kim managed to move ahead to a 7-5 lead, before Indian took back the lead briefly at 15-14. Trailing 16-18, Unnati won two points to level the scores, but Kim bounced back to win the final three points and sealed the match. It was the first head-to-head meeting between Unnati and Kim, with the latter having won the Macau Open title in June and was a part of the South Africa's gold medal-winning women's team at the Asian Games 2023. Previously before this, Unnati had made it to the second round of her Badminton World Championship (BWF) debut last month in New Delhi. In the men's doubles, MR Arjun and Hariharan Amsakarunan retired from their opening match against China's Chen Boyang and Liu Yi while trailing 11-8 in the first game. On Wednesday, Indian stars Lakshya Sen, Kidambi Srikanth, Tanvi Sharma, Devika Sihag and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy-Chirag Shetty will be in action in the ongoing BWF Super 750 tournament. (ANI)
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