All England Open: HS Prannoy, Lakshya Sen storm into second round
Mar 14, 2023
Birmingham [UK], March 14 : India's HS Prannoy and Lakshya Sen registered dominating victories to advance into the second round of the men's singles event at the All England Open 2023 badminton championships in Birmingham on Tuesday.
Prannoy registered a thrilling win over Chinese Taipei's world No. 24 Wang Tzu Wei 21-19, 22-20 in an opening-round clash that lasted for a 49-minute. The world No. 9 Indian badminton player will meet third-seeded Indonesian, Anthony Sinisuka Ginting, in the round of 16.
Prannoy looked in good touch and won the first game 21-19 despite some resistance from Tzu Wei Wang.
The advantage changed hands several times during the second game, which was fiercely contested. But a focused HS Prannoy made sure there were no last-minute mistakes by winning the game 22-20.
Later in the day, Lakshya Sen, who made the All England final last year, started slowly but overcame the world No. 5 Chou Tien Chen, also from Chinese Taipei, by a 21-18, 21-19 scoreline.
Sen, meanwhile, recovered from a slow start to claim the first game 21-18 against Chou Tien Chen.
Sen had the advantage and jumped out to a big lead in the second game, but the Chinese Taipei shuttler, who was seeded fifth in the competition, caught up to tie the score at 10-10. But, the 21-year-old shuttler from India stormed back to win the match in straight games. After three encounters, this was Sen's first victory over Chen.
Lakshya Sen will either face the winner of the all-Danish tie between Anders Antonsen or Rasmus Gemke in the next round.
On Wednesday, world No.22 Kidambi Srikanth, who is yet to win a single match on the BWF World Tour 2023 so far, will take on France's world No. 25 Toma Popov in round 1 of men's singles.
World No. 9 PV Sindhu will begin her women's singles campaign against China's Zhang Yi Man, who is currently ranked No. 17 in the world.
In the men's doubles, Indian pair of Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy will meet compatriots Krishna Prasad Garaga and Vishnuvardhan Goud Panjala while MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila will battle Xiang Yu Ren and Qiang Tan in the opener.
