Olympics badminton: Kento Momota undone in shock upset

Environment selection 1 Kento Momota was shocked by range 38 South Korea’s Heo Kwang-hee on Wednesday, going down 15-21, 19-21 and hunting visibly despondent at each individual missing stage.

Badminton’s comeback kid Momota has faced great road blocks to get to the Tokyo Olympics — which includes severe injury in a car or truck accident — and was expected to gain the match.

In its place, he struggled to hold his head above h2o in the initially recreation, overwhelmed a number of times by Heo’s sharply angled smashes and unable to retaliate with his personal.

Earlier, Denmark’s Viktor Axelsen — who is a single location beneath Momota — crushed Finland’s Kalle Koljonen 21-9, 21-13 with vicious shots that had the heft of his just about two-meter body behind them.

Planet selection a few Chou Tien-Chen was neck-and-neck for more than an hour with Canada’s Brian Yang, who ranks 44th in another close to-upset. The match finished 21-18, 16-21, 22-20 to an exhausted Chou, who rallied to resounding cheers from his team in the stands.

Chou’s teammate Tai Tzu Ying experienced a smoother working day in women’s singles, reminding the globe why she’s selection just one when she had France’s Qi Xuefei battling to match up by their 25- moment face.

Tai, who conquer Qi 21-10, 21-13, had a tough start out to the Tokyo Olympics, getting a for a longer period time to fend off two hugely inferior opponents before in the Video games.

“This is the to start with time I’m having to the major eight at the Olympics,” Tai said soon after the match. “Now the most important point is to prepare.”

India’s celebrated PV Sindhu — the badminton-crazy country’s ideal prospect at a gold this yr and a Rio silver medalist — had Hong Kong’s Cheung Ngan Yi sliding on her abdomen in their 1st game in advance of beating her 21-9. Cheung gave Sindhu a harder time in the next sport — maintaining practically in lockstep with her — and lots of of the points Sindhu conceded were taken because she landed the shuttlecock over and above bounds. Sindhu managed to get the 2nd sport 21-16.

In the blended doubles quarter-finals, globe selection one crew Zheng Si Wei and Huang Ya Qiong bought off to a robust start and overcame variety 4 duo Praveen Jordan and Melati Daeva Oktavianti, ending them off at 21-17, 21-15.

Japan’s Yuta Watanabe and Arisa Higashino squared off with Thailand’s Dechapol Puavaranukroh and Sapsiree Taerattanachai in a near match that took far more than an hour, and ultimately went to the previous duo 15-21, 21-16, 21-14.