Rio de Janeiro, August 11: Setbacks continued to haunt India in their quest to break open the medal chest in the Olympic Games here with shuttler P V Sindhu and Saina being the bright spot in yet another disappointing day on Thursday.
Sindhu, a two-time world championship bronze medal winner, opened her women's singles campaign on a winning note in Group M with a facile straight-game win in 27 minutes over unheralded Hungarian rival Laura Sarosi, ranked a lowly 64 in the world.
The ninth seed spanked her Hungarian opponent 21-8 21-9 in a Group M match that lasted for 27 minutes and is set to play against Glasgow Commonwealth Games champion Li Michelle of Canada on August 14 to complete the preliminary group engagements.
While ace Indian shuttler Saina Nehwal beat local hope Vicente Lohaynny 21-17, 21-17 in her opening Group C match in the women singles event here on Thursday.Saina got a tough competition from the Brazilian shuttler. Lohaynny being 5-9 down, fought back levelling the game at 10-10. saina just edged past the mid-game interval with a one point lead.
The 20-year-old local hope then fought neck-to-neck with the former world No.1. At 17-17 level, the Indian took four points on the trot and clinched the first game 21-17 in a well-battled 20 minutes.
However, her compatriots Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa lost their women's doubles league opener by losing 15-21 10-21 to the World No.1 Japanese pair of Ayaka Takahashi and Misaki Matsumoto in Group A.
Men's doubles duo of Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy lost 18-21 13-21 to World No.2 Indonesian duo of Mohammad Ahsan and Hendra Setiawan to make it a poor opening day in badminton.
There were more setbacks on day 6 of competitions in archery, boxing and men's hockey to dampen the Indian spirits. Young boxer Shiva Thapa (56kg) bowed out of the Olympic Games after being out-punched by fourth-seeded Cuban Robeisy Ramirez in the opening round here today. The 22-year-old, competing in his second Olympics, lost 0-3 in a one-sided contest in which he also ended up sustaining a cut above his left eye.
In men's hockey, India wasted as many as five penalty corners seconds from the final hooter to go down 1-2 against reigning silver medallist Netherlands and slump to their second defeat in the pool.
A draw against Netherlands today would have sealed India's place in the quarterfinals. But they now will have to wait for the result of their last pool encounter against Canada tomorrow.
India are now placed third in Pool B with six points behind leaders Netherlands (10) and Germany (9). Argentina are placed fourth with four points.
