Shuttler Lakshya Sen enters second round of Hylo Open, Kidambi Srikanth bows out

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New Delhi: Star Indian shuttler Lakshya Sen stunned fifth seed Christo Popov of France in straight games to enter into the second round of the Hylo Open in Germany. While it was merry one of India’s biggest shuttler, it turned out to be misery for the other one as Kidambi Srikanth bowed out of the event.

Sen reached the men’s singles second round of the Super 500 tournament on Wednesday after beating Popov 21-16, 22-20 in the opening round. Sen is a 2021 World Championships bronze medallist who had reached the finals at the Hong Kong Open earlier.

Lakshya is set to next face compatriot S Sankar Muthusamy Subramanian, who got the better of Malaysia’s Jun Hao Leong 21-14, 18-21, 21-16 in a separate opening round match. Meanwhile, Srikanth, who one of the celebrated singles player in the country, failed to put up a show in front of Kiran George in the men’s singles round going down 19-21, 11-21.

While his campaign ends, George will next face eight seed Toma Junior Popov of France, who defeated Harry Huang of England 21-17, 19-21, 21-19.

Women’s singles produce good results

On the other hand in the women’s singles, some good results were produced with unseeded Shriyanshi Valishetty outplaying third seed Line Hojmark Kjaersfeldt of Denmark 21-19, 21-12 in just 33-minute clash. Youngster Rakshitha Santhosh Ramraj also made a progress to the round of 16 with a 21-14, 21-16 victory over Clara Azurmendi of Spain.

Valishetty and Ramraj will face each other in the second round in what will be an all-Indian contest. However, it was the end of the road for shuttler Anmol Kharb as she fought hard before losing 24-26, 21-23 against eight seed Julie Dawall Jakobsen of Denmark in another women’s singles opening round match.

(With PTI inputs)