Sai Praneeth and Sameer Verma were the only Indian men’s singles players who made it past the first round of the Australian Badminton Open in Sydney on Wednesday. In women’s singles, 16-year-old Vaishnavi Reddy Jakka was the only Indian who reached the second round.
Sai Praneeth beat Israel’s Misha Zilberman 21-17, 21-14, while Sameer Verma got the better of New Zealand’s Abhinav Manota after three games – 13-21, 21-9, 21-7 – to enter the round of 16. Manota had defeated Sameer’s brother Sourabh Verma at the New Zealand Open last week.
Sourabh Verma, however, failed to join his brother in the second round after being ousted by Japan’s Takuma Ueda 19-21, 21-17, 21-12.
In what turned out to be a nail-biting contest, 16-year-old Lakshya Sen pushed world No 38 Lee Cheuk Yiu, ranked 66 places above the Indian, but ended up losing a tight match 20-22, 21-13, 19-21. The 7th seed from Hong Kong took an early 8-0 lead in the first game but Sen forced his way back into the contest from there, to make it 20-20, but ended up losing the first game 20-22. The second game saw the Indian teenager carry forward the momentum as he led from start to finish to clinch it 21-13. In a closely fought decider, the higher-ranked Cheuk Yiu edged past Sen 21-19.
Ajay Jayaram was also out in the first round after a tight three-game defeat to Japan’s Riichi Takeshita: 20-22, 22-20, 21-17. Karan Rajan Rajarajan went down to Indonesia’s Sony Kwi Kuncoro 15-21, 8-21 in the first round.
In women’s singles, Vaishnavi Reddy Jakka fought back from a game down against England’s Georgina Bland to win 19-21, 21-15, 21-15. She will be the lone Indian in the second round as Sri Krishna Priya Kudaravalli and Sai Uttejitha Rao were both knocked out in straight games.
Sameer plays Takuma Ueda, who defeated his brother Sourabh, while second seed Sai Praneeth will take on Panji Ahmad Maulana in the round of 16 on Thursday. For Vaishnavi, a Chinese challenge awaits in the form of Han Yue.
While it was overall a disappointing day for India in the singles, the country’s doubles players had better results to show. Men’s doubles third seeds Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy, seventh seeds MR Arjun and Shlok Ramchandran, and women’s doubles pair of J Meghna and Poorvisha S Ram all made it to the second round.
Francis Alwin and K Nandagopal retired midway through their match against Korea’s Tae In Jung and Hwi Tae Kim. Francis and Nandagopal had won a marathon first game 30-28 and were trailing 7-8 in the second when they retired.
Rohan Kapoor and Shivam Sharma, however, lost to Malaysia’s Tang Jie Chen and Goh Soon Huat in three games: 21-15, 15-21, 21-7.
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