Arvind Bhat loses in second round of German Open

Indian shuttler Arvind Bhat went down fighting against Hyun Il Lee of Singapore 19-21, 21-19, 15-21 in the second round of the men's singles event in the German Open Grand Prix Gold in Mulheim an der Ruhr. 

It was also curtains for P Kashyap and Ajay Jayaram, both of whom had lost in the first round itself. 

In the women's singles, P V Sindhu suffered a defeat at the hands of Juan GU of Singapore 14-21, 15-21 to bow out of the first round. The match lasted 33 minutes. 

India's mixed doubles pair of V Diju and Jwala Gutta also failed to make it to the second round after suffering a 21-18 9-21 19-21 defeat against Wai Hong Wong and Hoi Wah Chau of Hong Kong in a 51-minute hard-fought match. 

Former National champion Arvind, who had reached the second round after Scott Evans retired midway at 21-9, posed a tough challenge to his opponent, the fourth seed Lee, before losing the battle in little less than an hour on Wednesday. 

Other than Arvind, Anand Pawar was another player who had managed to cross the first round hurdle in the men's singles competition after defeating Eetu Heino of Finland 21-12, 21-16 on Tuesday.

However, Commonwealth Games Bronze medallist P Kashyap lost a grim battle against Singapore's Zi Liang Derek Wong 15-21, 21-23, while Ajay Jayaram suffered a 9-21, 19-21 defeat against fifth seed Simon Santoso of Indonesia. 

Six seed Jan O Jorgensen of Denmark had defeated India's Sourabh Varma 19-21, 21-17, 21-15.