Commonwealth Games champion Lakshya Sen’s woeful run continued as he made a first-round exit at the Swiss Open badminton tournament, even as senior compatriot Kidambi Srikanth progressed to the next round of the BWF World Tour Super 300 event, here on Wednesday.
The 2021 World Championships silver medallist Srikanth had to dig deep to get the better of China’s Weng Hong Yang 21-16, 15-21, 21-18 to set up a second-round clash against Hong Kong’s Cheuk Yiu Lee, who dashed the hopes of world No.12 Sen.
The eighth-seeded Sen failed to match the level of his rival, losing 18-21, 11-21. But Mithun Manjunath registered a straight-game 21-8, 21-17 win over Joran Kweekel of the Netherlands to sail into the men’s singles pre-quarterfinals.
The men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty defeated the Malaysian combination of Xin Yuan Boon and Tien Ci Wong 21-15, 21-18 to enter the pre-quarterfinals.
On Tuesday, women’s doubles pair of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand lost their first-round match to Indonesian duo Apriyani Rahayu and Siti Fadia Silva 14-21, 14-21.
