India’s Canada Open Hopes Dented By Srikanth Injury

ONTARIO-India’s campaign at the Canada Open 2026 endured a difficult opening day as seven of its nine singles players crashed out in the first round, with former world No. 1 Kidambi Srikanth retiring injured during his match at the Markham Pan Am Centre on July 2.

Facing Malaysia’s Lee Zii Jia, Srikanth was forced to retire while trailing 11-10 in the opening game because of injury. The setback came just a week after the Indian had defeated Lee en route to finishing runner-up at the US Open. The result also extended Lee’s head-to-head advantage over Srikanth to 6-3.

Saneeth Dayanand and Sankar Subramanian also bowed out in the opening round, ending India’s men’s singles campaign.

Japan’s third seed Yudai Okimoto defeated Saneeth 21-7, 21-11, while South Korea’s Yoo Tae-bin came from a game down to beat Sankar 19-21, 21-15, 21-15.

The women’s singles draw provided the only positive results for India, with Tanya Hemnath and Aakarshi Kashyap advancing to the second round.

Tanya defeated USA’s Disha Gupta 21-16, 21-18 to set up a round-of-16 clash against Japan’s Riko Gunji.

Aakarshi, the Commonwealth Games bronze medallist, beat France’s Anna Tatranova 21-14, 21-12 and will next face fourth seed Beiwen Zhang of the United States for a place in the quarter-finals.

The rest of India’s women’s singles campaign ended on the opening day. (IANS)