Lakshya Sen stunned fifth seed Christo Popov of France in straight games to enter the men’s singles pre-quarterfinals at the USD 475,000 Hylo Open Super 500 tournament in Saarbrucken, Germany on Wednesday.
Popov, the left-hander who has been in great form having reached the final of his home tournament last week at French Open Super 750, trailed 2-5 in the head-to-head coming into the match.
Lakshya, a 2021 World Championships bronze medallist, who reached the finals at the Hong Kong Open, defeated higher-ranked Popov 21-16 22-20 in the opening round. It’s been a topsy-turvy season for Lakshya, who has had the occasional impressive wins and performances but also suffered frequent first-round exits.
Lakshya will next face compatriot S Sankar Muthusamy Subramanian, who defeated Malaysia’s Jun Hao Leong 21-14 18-21 21-16 in another opening round match against a higher-ranked opponent.
However, it was curtains for Kidambi Srikanth, who lost 19-21 11-21 to compatriot Kiran George. George will next face eight seed Toma Junior Popov of France, Christo’s elder brother, who beat Harry Huang of England 21-17 19-21 21-19.
There were some encouraging results from women’s singles as well with unseeded Shriyanshi Valishetty outsmarting third seed Line Højmark Kjaersfeldt of Denmark 21-19 21-12 in just 33 minutes..
Young Rakshitha Santhosh Ramraj also progressed to the round of 16 with 21-14 21-16 win over Clara Azurmendi of Spain. Shriyanshi and Rakshita will meet each other in the second round in an all-Indian contest. Unnati Hooda defeated Brazil’s Juliana VianaVierira 21-4 21-13 to enter the second round.
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She will next take on Julie Dawall Jakobsen who was pushed all the way by another Indian shuttler Anmol Kharb. Kharb fought valiantly before losing 24-26 21-23 against eight-seed Jakobsen of Denmark in another women’s singles opening round match.
In other matches in the discipline, Anupama Upadhyaya lost 19-21 19-21 against Polina Buhrova of Ukraine to crash out of the omen’s singles competition. Aakarshi Kshyap too bowed out after losing 15-21 15-21 against Neslihan Arin of Turkiye.
(With PTI inputs)
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