Ajay Jayaram suffered a straight-sets quarter-final defeat to Lee Zii Jia of Malaysia to crush out of the Chinese Taipei BWF World Tour Super 300 badminton tournament on Friday. Jayaram loss also ended India’s campaign in the tournament.
Jayaram lost 16-21, 9-21 in just 28 minutes to bow out of the competition.
He started well and put up a good fight and both the shuttlers went neck on neck. But from 16-16 at one stage, Jayaram gave way five consecutive to hand over the opening set to the Malaysian.
Also Read: Chinese Taipei Open: Ajay Jayaram makes it to the quarters; Sourabh Verma ousted
Lee then proved too handle to handle for the 93rd Indian, who failed to put up a fight and seemingly brought his own downfall after committing many unforced errors.
The 43rd ranked Lee will now face top seed Chou Tien Chen of Chinese Taipei in the semi-finals on Saturday.
Earlier, former national champion Sourabh Verma, who had recently won the China Open and also participated at the 18th Asian Games went down 21-19 21-23 16-21 against Riichi Takeshita of Japan to bow out of the tournament on Thursday.