Indian shuttler Kidambi Srikanth suffered a straight-game defeat in his second Group B match and the women’s doubles pair of Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy lost their second successive match at the season-ending BWF World Tour Finals on Thursday.

Srikanth jeopardised his chances of making it to the knockout stage of the BWF World Tour Finals after losing to Thailand’s Kunlavut Vitidsarn. The Indian duo will face England’s Chloe Birch and Lauren Smith in their last Group B match.

Earlier, the women’s doubles pair of Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy went down fighting 19-21, 20-22 to Bulgaria’s Gabriela Stoeva and Stefani Stoeva to bow out of contention.

The top men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty handed a walkover to the top-seeded Indonesian pair of Marcus Fernaldi Gideon and Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo after the former complained of knee pain. The duo will not participate further in the tournament.

For Srikanth, it was his third defeat to Vitidsarn, having lost to him at the Sudirman Cup in September and Asia Team Championships last year.

In Group B, Malaysian second seed Lee Zii Jia is at the top with two points, while Srikanth and Vitidsarn shared a point each after registering one victory and one loss.

While Srikanth will face Lee Zii Jia in his third match, Vitidsarn will meet France’s, Toma Junior Popov.

The winner will finish in the top 2 and qualify for the knockout stage, and if both win their respective matches, it will boil down to the number of games won and lost.

On Wednesday, Lakshya Sen, the youngest Indian to qualify for the year-ending event, made it to the semifinals after his opponent Kento Momota retired with a back injury and Denmark’s Rasmus Gemke, who is also in Group A, conceded his match against compatriot Viktor Axelsen due to a knee injury.

With both Momota and Gemke pulling out, Lakshya and Axelsen are set to qualify from the group.