Asia C'ship: Sayali fails to qualify for main draw

India's Sayali Gokhale failed to qualify for the main draw of women's singles event in the Badminton Asia Championships after losing her second and final round qualifier in Taipei.

The Pune girl won the first round of the qualifiers comfortably but could not cross the second-round hurdle. In the first round, the 26-year-old Sayali took just 23 minutes to outplay Sri Lankan Kavindi Ishandika Sirimannage 21-16, 21-14.

The Indian fought hard in the next round as well but went down 23-21, 10-21, 10-21 to Ya Ching Hsu of Chinese Taipei in 40 minutes. The main round matches, which starts from Wednesday, will see a number of Indians competing in various categories.

World No.7 Parupalli Kashyap will start his campaign against South Korea's Ji Hoon Hong in the men's singles event. Seeded fourth in the tournament, Kashyap is not likely to be challenged much till the semifinals. But in the last four stage, the Indian could face world No. 2 Chen Long of China.

Another Indian in the men's singles category, Sai Praneeth B, will take on Mohamed Ajfan Rasheed of Maldives in his first round match.

In the women's singles category, upcoming star P V Sindhu is expected to have an easy run against Tsz Ka Chan of Hong Kong in the opening round, but in the second round, she is likely to face World No. 6 Wang Shixian, in all probability.

The men's doubles section will see the pair of Tarun Kona and Arun Vishnu taking on Vietnamese duo of Bao Duc Duong and Hoang Nam Nguyen in the first round.

The other Indian combinations in the fray are Pranaav Jerry Chopra and Akshay Dewalkarm and the pair of Manu Attri and Sumeeth Reddy B.

Meanwhile, it will be a good practice for the women's doubles pair of Ashwini Ponnappa and Pradnya Gadre ahead of next week's Yonex Sunrise Indian Open tournament.

The duo will face the local pair of Pei Rong Wang and Kuo Yu Wen in the opening round, while another Indian combo of Aparna Balan and Siki Reddy N will take on local girls Hsiao Huan Chen and Chia Wen Lai.

In the mixed doubles, India will be represented by three combos -- Tarun Kone and Ashwini Ponnappa, Arun Vishnu and Aparna Balan and Akshay Dewalkar will team up with Pradnya Gadre.