Number 8 seed Saina Nehwal won/lost her opening match of the Korea Open at Incheon against Kim Ga Eun of South Korea on Wednesday. Saina won/lost XXX against Eun, who is ranked no 24.

Saina had held a 2-0 win record against Eun in their previous matches. Saina has had a tough year in 2019 owing to injuries. Since her win at the Indonesia Open at the beginning of the season, Saina is yet to reach the final of another Badminton World Federation event this year. A week ago, Saina had suffered a first-round exit at the China Open.

Wednesday had been a bad day for India at the Korea Open. Early in the day, Sai Praneeth retired against Anders Antonsen of Denmark after trailing 21-9, 11-7. After that, world champion P.V. Sindhu suffered a shock defeat in her opening game against Beiwen Zhang of the US. Sindhu had won the first set comprehensively, but eventually lost 7-21, 24-22, 21-15 to Zhang.

In the men's doubles, Manu Attri and B. Sumeeth Reddy lost to Huang Kai Xiang and Liu Cheng 16-21, 21-19, 18-21. Satwisairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty will take on Takeshi Kamuri and Keigo Sonoda later in the day.

In an interesting coincidence for Saina, her husband Parupalli Kashyap was playing Lu Chia Hung of Taiwan shortly before her match. Kashyap won India's first match of the day, defeating Hung 21-16, 21-16.

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