German Open: Injury blow for Kashyap, Sindhu cruises into last 8

There was no respite from injuries for ace shuttler Parupalli Kashyap who retired hurt midway through his German Open pre-quarter-final at Mulheim an der Ruhr, dealing a fresh blow to his Olympic qualification hopes.

Already racing against time to seal a Rio berth, Kashyap was back on the court at the German Open after recovering from a series of injuries which had derailed his preparation for the Summer Games.

However, the Commonwealth Games champion suffered a knee injury during his clash against eighth seed Son Wan Ho of Korea on Thursday night and had to retire with the score reading 12-21, 11-16 at the RWE-Sporthalle.

Kashyap is being attended by physiotherapist Johnson Solomon but the extent of his injury is still not clear.

“He is fine now but we are waiting for some tests. Only after that, we can say how much time would be needed for him to recover,” Solomon said.

Meanwhile, world no. 10 Kidambi Srikanth, seeded sixth, bowed out of the men’s singles event losing 21-18, 18-21, 18-21 to 12th seed N.G. Ka Long Angus of Hong Kong in another pre-quarter-final.

P.V. Sindhu is the only Indian survivor at the event after she reached the quarter-finals, defeating Michelle Li of Canada 21-9, 21-17.

Seventh seed Sindhu will now face fourth seeded Chinese Wang Shixian.

Once a world no.8, Kashyap has slipped to 17th, owing to a series of injuries which started with the calf muscle tear in October last year.