The Indian men's doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty began the 2024 season on a winning note, advancing to the second round of the Malaysia Open Super 1000 on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the remaining two challengers in men’s singles, HS Prannoy and Lakshya Sen both crashed out in the opening round of the tournament in Malaysia.
World No 8 Prannoy lost to Denmark's Anders Antonsen, a player ranked one spot below him, 14-21, 11-21 in 43 minutes. Sen went down 15-21, 16-21 to China’s Weng Hong Yang in 49 minutes.
This means that Srikanth Kidambi, who beat fifth seed Jonatan Christie on Tuesday, is the only Indian remaining in the event. Also on the same day, the women’s doubles pair of Tanisha Crasto and Ashwini Ponnappa cruised into the second round.
The world No 2 doubles pair were up against the Indonesian pair of Muhammad Shohibul Fikri and Maulana Bagas who they beat 21-18, 21-19 in 44 minutes.
The first game was dominated by the Indians who raced to an 8-4 lead and never looked back. The second game proved to be trickier for Rankireddy and Shetty who trailed for most of the game before levelling at 19-all and winning the final two points to close out the match in two straight games.
For Prannoy, it was a difficult match where the Indian was unable to get one over his Danish opponent all throughout the match. In the first game, Prannoy started on the back foot and never truly caught up with Antonsen. In the second game, the Indian began confidently and kept abreast of the Dane, finally equalising at 7-all. After that, Antonsen went on a streak of winning points and took the game and match away from Prannoy.
In his match, it was level until the break when Yang led 11-7 at the break. Sen managed to remain in the game by recovering at 14-16, but could win only one point to Yang’s five. The second game began in a similar fashion and Sen equalised at 7-all, but then Yang opened up a huge lead at 14-8. The Indian tried to claw back by reducing the deficit at 16-18, but the Chinese player closed out the match easily to knock Sen out in the opening round.
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