India’s Lakshya Sen advanced to the men’s singles quarter-finals of the 2024 Indonesia Open Super 1000 with a comfortable victory over Japan’s Kenta Nishimoto on Thursday.
The 2024 Paris Olympics bound Sen never looked in any trouble as he cruised to a 21-9, 21-15 straight games victory in 45 minutes.
He is now slated to face off against Denmark’s Anders Antonsen for a spot in the semi-finals.
Meanwhile, the women’s doubles pair of Tanisha Crasto and Ashwini Ponnappa bowed out of the competition following a hard fought 13-21, 21-19, 13-21 loss to world No 2 Baek Ha Na and Lee So Hee of South Korea.
Tanisha and Ashwini, ranked 20th in the world, fought back well in the second game to force a decider after surrendering tamely in the first. The South Koreans, however, displayed why they are the higher ranked players in the world, forcing errors out of the Indians with ease to show them the exit door.
Earlier in the day, the other Indian women’s doubles pair of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand went down 21-19, 19-21, 19-21 in an intense Round of 16 battle against Japan’s Mayu Matsumoto and Wakana Nagahara.
Sumeeth Reddy and Sikki Reddy, in mixed doubles, also crashed out following a 9-21, 11-21 straight games loss to world No 1 Zheng Si Wei and Huang Ya Qiong in merely 24 minutes.
Priyanshu Rajawat exited the tournament after a 10-21, 17-21 loss to the reigning world champion Kunlavut Vitidsarn in the Round of 16.
In the first game, Viditsarn showed his class as he won seven points in a row to lead 10-1. After that, Rajawat managed to win only nine more points as the Thai player closed out the opening game 21-10.
The second game was a closer affair as Rajawat kept abreast of the eighth seed in the early stages to level things at 4-all. Rajawat also managed to close the gap between him and Viditsarn to just one point after trailing 8-13. The Indian then took the fight to the Thai player as he held his serve to trail 13-14.
Viditsarn was made a few uncharacteristic mistakes, but soon managed to reach matchpoint after winning three points in a row. Rajawat saved two, but failed to get close to force a deciding set as the Thai player closed out the match 21-10, 21-17.
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