Chinese national badminton players suffered a triple-strike as the women's singles defending champion Li Xuerui, women's doublesTang Yuanting and Yu Yang, and men's doubles combo of Chai Biao and Hong Wei were defeated by their opponents at the ongoing 2016 Rio Games at the Barra Olympic Park Riocentro-Pavilion 4 on Wednesday.

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Li was unsuccessful in beating the event's top seed Carolina Marin of Spain in the semifinal round. Li, who picked up a leg injury during the match, succumbed to the No.1 female shuttler in the globe in a 21-14, 21-16 defeat.

According to Xinhua, head coach Li Yongbo said medical examinations revealed that the 25-year-old Chinese badminton ace tore her anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and also suffered from an injury in her lateral meniscus. With the knee injury, Li pulled out of her scheduled bronze medal showdown against Nozomi Okuhara of Japan.

The Japanese badminton ace, who was defeated by India's P.V. Sindhu 21-19, 21-10 in the other women's singles final four clash, will then be automatically awarded the women's singles badminton bronze medal.

Earlier, women's doubles pair Tang and Yu yielded to the South Korean duo Jung Kyung Eun and Shin Seung Chan in a straight sets 21-8, 21-17 loss, according to China Daily Asia.

"It's hard for me to recover from the semifinal defeat, and I know I didn't play well," Yu said. "It means a relief as all the matches finally finished. It's the last match to me although I felt sorry for everything."

Meanwhile, Chai and Hong of China also missed a chance at a podium finish after losing to Marcus Ellis and Chris Langridge of Britain 18-21, 21-19, 10-21 in the men's doubles bronze medal playoff.

"We have fought to the last match no matter what the result is. I'm thankful for my partner's hard work and cooperation in the past four years," said Chai.

TagsRio Olympics 2016, bwf rankings, bwf, Li Xuerui, Carolina Marin, pv sindhu