Sindhu, Lakshya win openers; Sai Praneeth crashes out in US Open

Council Bluffs (US): Olympic medalist PV Sindhu defeated American Disha Gupta, who is of Indian origin, while Lakshya Sen started his men's singles campaign with a decisive victory over Finland's Kalle Koljonen at the US Open Super 300 badminton competition today.

In a different men's singles match, S Sankar Subramanian, who advanced to the tournament's main draw after two challenging qualification matches, won the opening round against a challenging Irish opponent in Nhat Nguyen, 21-11, 21-16.

However, B Sai Praneeth lost to 23-year-old world No. 7 Chinese player Li Shi Feng after a gruelling match that lasted three games.

Sindhu defeated Diksha 21-15, 21-12 in just 27 minutes to enter the second round, while Lakshya beat his Finnish opponent 21-8, 21-16 in less than 30 minutes.

Sankar though was tested by his Irish opponent Nhat Nguyen before winning 21-11, 21-16 in 44 minutes, while Praneeth gave a tough fight to second seed Shi Feng before going down 16-21, 21-14, 21-19 in one hour and 14 minutes.

In another women’s singles match, India’s 61-ranked player Ruthvika Shivani went down to Lin Hsiang Ti of Chinese-Taipei 14-21, 11-21.

On Tuesday, former Commonwealth Games champion Parupalli Kashyap retired midway into his second match after trailing 21-23 7-11 against Koo Takahashi of Japan. He had won his first match against England’s Rohan Midha 21-19, 21-17.

Men’s doubles pair of Krishna Prasad Garaga and Vishnuvardhan Goud Panjala, however, couldn’t cross the opening round losing 14-21, 14-21 to Chinese Taipei’s Lin Yu Chieh and Su Li Wei.

The BWF World Tour is divided into six levels, namely World Tour Finals, four Super 1000, six Super 750, seven Super 500, and 11 Super 300.

One other category of the tournament, the BWF Tour Super 100 level, also offers ranking points.

With PTI inputs