Tokyo: Indian young badminton sensation Laksya Sen advanced to the third round of the BWF World Championships while last edition’s silver medallist Kidambi Srikanth bowed out of the tournament here on Wednesday.
Sen, 2021 bronze medallist, registered 21-17, 21-10 win over Spain’s Luis Enrique Penalver at the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium to progress to the pre-quarterfinals of the prestigious tournament. Srikanth, however, suffered 9-21, 17-21 loss at the hands of Chinese Zhao Jun Peng in the second round. The 21-year-old Indian will next face the winner of the match between compatriot H S Prannoy and Japan’s Kento Momota for the place in the quarterfinals.
Last time, Sen had entered the world championships unseeded but went on to cause major upsets, including the victory over Tokyo Olympics semifinalist Kevin Cordon. He lost to compatriot Srikanth in the semifinal and settled for bronze.
On the other hand, women’s doubles duo of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Pullela Gopichand too ended their campaign as they fell 8-21, 17-21 to Commonwealth Games champions Tan Pearly and Thinaah Muralitharan of Malaysia in the round-of-32. Earlier, Dhruv Kapila and partner M R Arjun created one of the biggest upsets of the World Championships 2022 in taking down eighth seeds Kim Astrup and Anders Skaarup Rasmussen. This was the Indians’ first win over a top-10 pair.
Ace women doubles duo of Ashwini Ponappa and N Sikki Reddy suffered a 15-21, 10-21 loss at the hands of Tokyo Olympics silver medallist Chinese combination of Chen Qingchen and Jia Yifan. And, the pair of Pooja Dandu and Sanjana Santosh fell 15-21, 7-21 against South Korean combination of Shin Seung-chan and Lee So Hee of South Korea.
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