PV Sindhu, Satwik-Chirag start with comfortable wins; Srikanth knocked out

Reigning world champion PV Sindhu made an impressive start at the All England Badminton Championships along with promising doubles duo Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty as the Super 1000 event got underway after hours of delay due to Covid-19 retesting.

However, compatriots Kidambi Srikanth and Parupalli Kashyap suffered early exits after losing their respective opening round men’s singles matches on Wednesday.

Some members of the Indian contingent, along with others who had reportedly returned positive tests, were among those retested overnight as the Badminton World Federation pushed the start of the tournament to afternoon local time by which time everyone concerned received the all-clear.

Olympic silver medallist Sindhu came through a good test,…