Indian badminton star Saina Nehwal's chances of qualifying for the Olympics took a hit after she made a first-round exit from the All England Championships, following a loss to Japanese nemesis Akane Yamaguchi. Up against world number three Yamaguchi, it was a tough opening round for Saina, who lost 11-21 8-21 in just 28 minutes on Wednesday. However, in men's singles, Lakshya Sen prevailed over Hong Kong's Cheuk Yiu Lee 17-21 21-8 21-17 in a gruelling first round, which lasted 59 minutes. Sen will now clash with second seed and world number seven from Denmark Viktor Axelsen for a place in the quarterfinals.

Saina is placed 20th on the BWF rankings with 46267 points and the 2012 London Olympics bronze-medallist needs to enter the top-16 bracket by April 28 to make the cut for the 2020 Tokyo Games. She now needs strong performances to pocket crucial ranking points but considering that several sporting events are being cancelled in view of the deadly novel coronavirus outbreak, it remains to be seen how many she actually gets to play. The 29-year-old is scheduled to compete at the Swiss Open (March 17-22), India Open (March 24-29) and Malaysia Open (March 31-April 5) in the following weeks.