Saina and Srikanth lose their first round match at Dubai SSF

BOTH INDINA SHUTTLERS playing in the Dubai SSF - Womens' World No. 2 Saina Nehwal and  Mens' World No. 9 Kidambi Srikanth - lost their respective first round matches in the round-robin cum knockout tournament.

Saina lost to 4th seed Nozomi Okuhara of Japan 14-21, 6-21 in 35 minutes. This may be the most disappointing defeat that the Indian shuttler has faced this year with multiple unforced errors. Nehwal had faced Okuhara 4 times before this match and she had won every single of them.

Whether or not Saina would be fit enough to play the match was uncertain for a while as she has not yet fully recovered from her achilles injury but the 20 team Saina squad that went to cheer her was filled with energy and cheering their icon till the very end.

The support must have kept the world no. 2 go on till the end but her pain did not allow her and she eventually lost the match. Her next round opponent is world no. 1 Carolina Marin of Spain against whom Saina has 3-2 lead in the head-to-head count but Marin has had an extra-ordinary year and to top it off she also bagged the BWF player of the year award before this tournament began.

On the other hand, in men's singles category Srikanth lost the match against 2nd seeded Kento Momota of Japan 13-21, 13-21 in 41 minutes. The Japanese shuttler dominated the game throughout the match, leading by almost 8-9 points in both the sets. The gap was too much for Srikanth to either level it take the lead.

Momota was making Srikanth run all over the court with his smashing shots and he won the match in a smashing fashion. After this win Momota has taken the lead in the head-to-head count 4-3.

Srikanth next faces fourth seed Viktor Axelsen of Denmark against whom the head-to-head count is in the former's favour 2-0.

Both the Indian shuttlers have to win both their following matches to qualify to the play-offs.