A fighting Kidambi Srikanth suffered a straight-game loss to Olympic champion Chen Long of China to bow out of the men's singles quarterfinals at the Malaysia Open here Friday.

The eighth seeded Indian, who had reached the finals of India Open last week, blew a huge advantage in the opening game to eventually lose the quarterfinal match 18-21 19-21. This was Srikanth's fourth quarterfinal of the season. Srikanth blew a 16-11 advantage in the opening game, while in the second game he fought back from 7-11 down to level scores at 19-19 before ending up on the losing side. The 26-year-old had a 1-5 head-to-head record against Chen Long, whom he had defeated in their last meeting at the 2017 Australian Open.