Kidambi Srikanth pulls out of Thailand Open due to right calf muscle injury

Badminton Association of India (BAI) confirmed that Kidambi Srikanth will not be playing his 2nd round match in Bangkok and the Indian shuttler has given a walkover to Lee Zii Jia due to a right calf muscle pull.

"Right Calf muscle pull. So gave walkover for today's match. Should see how he improves in the next 5 days and then will decide about his participation in the next tournament," BAI's official statement on Srikanth's walkover read.

Kidambi Srikanth had won his first-round match in the Thailand Open after imposing a straight game thrashing on Indian opponent Sourabh Verma. With 9 consecutive points in the 1st game, Srikanth won 21-12 and followed it up with 21-11 in the 2nd game, wherein he scored



10 consecutive points. Srikanth completed his thrashing of Verma in 31 minutes of game time.

Ahead of the tournament, Kidambi Srikanth had expressed his frustration over a bleeding nose resulting from the swab test for Covid-19. Srikanth called it unacceptable and lashed out at the medical authorities for his bloodied nose.

Earlier, Indian men's doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty on Thursday bowed out of the Thailand Open after stumbling to a loss in the second round. The pair was defeated by the Indonesian pair of Mohammad Ahsan and Hendra Setiawan in straight games 21-19, 21-17. Rankireddy and Shetty failed to get going from the very start and the duo was defeated in straight games.