India’s emerging badminton players Ayush Shetty and Anmol Kharb bowed out in the opening round of the Denmark Open 2025 after defeats in Odense on Tuesday.
Playing at the Jyske Bank Arena, the 20-year-old Shetty, 30th in the men’s singles badminton rankings, suffered a 21-19, 17-21, 21-15 defeat against world No. 15 Toma Junior Popov of France in a contest that lasted 77 minutes.
Ayush Shetty, the US Open 2025 badminton champion, matched Popov shot for shot early on, with the opening game level at 15-all before the Frenchman surged ahead with a four-point burst.
The second game followed a similar pattern with Ayush leading at 16-15 before winning five of the last seven points to take the match into the decider, which the French shuttler won convincingly.
In the women’s singles, 18-year-old Anmol Kharb, ranked 46th, fell 21-9, 21-14 to Indonesia’s world No. 7 Putri Kusuma Wardani in 34 minutes.
After a one-sided first game, Anmol showed better rhythm in the second to level the scores at 14-all before Wardani reeled off seven straight points to clinch the match.
Anmol, a semi-finalist at the Arctic Open earlier this month, was India’s lone representative in the women’s singles draw.
Pruthvi Krishnamurthy Roy and Sai Pratheek K lost 21-13, 21-17 to Liu Kuang-Heng and Yang Po-han of Chinese Taipei in the men’s doubles.
In the women’s doubles, India’s Kavipriya Selvam and Simran Singhi went down 21-4, 21-11 against Gabriela Stoeva and Stefani Stoeva of Bulgaria. Rutaparna Panda and Swetaparna Panda will be in action in the women’s doubles later in the day.
Lakshya Sen and the country’s top men’s doubles duo of Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy will begin their campaigns at the BWF Super 750 tournament on Wednesday.