Badminton
French Open 2025: Satwik-Chirag exit, Unnati Hooda progresses
World No. 35 Unnati fought back to advance, while other Indians had tough outings.
Unnati Hooda advanced to the French Open second round. (File photo)
India’s Unnati Hooda recovered from a set down to emerge victorious in the opening round of the French Open 2025, a BWF World Tour Super 750 tournament, on Wednesday.
Unnati, fresh from her World Junior Championships quarterfinal, defeated world no. 39 Karupathevan Letshanaa of Malaysia 11-21, 21-13, 21-16 in a contest that lasted a little over an hour.
Meanwhile, Anmol Kharb and Anupama Upadhyaya lost their respective women’s singles matches. Anmol lost to top seed An Se Young of Korea 15-21, 9-21, and Anupama lost her opening round match to fourth seed Han Yue of China 15-21, 11-21 in 34 minutes.
On the other hand, last week's semi-finalist pair of Satwaksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty bowed out in first round to the Indonesian pair of Rahmat Hidayat and MR Ardianto, 18-21, 20-22.
Whereas, the duo of Rutuparna Panda and Swetaparna Panda faced a straight-game 9-21, 11-21 defeat to Kavipriya Selvam and Simran Singhi in an all-Indian women's doubles clash.
In men’s singles, Ayush Shetty fought hard against Koki Watanabe of Japan, eventually conceding 19-21, 19-21 in 46 minutes.
