Jakarta [Indonesia], June 4 (ANI): Indian badminton players Priyanshu Rajawat and Lakshya Sen advanced to the second round of the Indonesia Open 2024 BWF Super 1000 tournament in Jakarta on Tuesday.
Priyanshu Rajawat, the world No. 34, defeated fellow Indian HS Prannoy, 10th in the world badminton rankings for men’s singles, 21-17, 21-12 in just 39 minutes.
This was Prannoy’s first defeat against his junior compatriot in four matches. Rajawat will go up against reigning world champion Kunalvut Vitidsarn of Thailand in the next round.
Commonwealth Games champion and world No. 14 Lakshya Sen, who will join Prannoy in the Paris 2024 Olympics-bound Indian badminton contingent, had little trouble in his first-round encounter against Japan’s Kenta Tsuneyama.
The Indian badminton player comfortably defeated the 29th-ranked Tsuneyama 21-12, 21-17 in 40 minutes.
Sen will face another Japanese shuttler, Kenta Nishimoto, in the next round. Nishimoto upset Indonesian seventh seed Anthony Sinisuka Ginting in his opening-round match.
Kiran George’s campaign in men’s singles, however, ended early. Despite taking the first game against the People’s Republic of China’a Weng Hong Yang, the world No. 36 eventually succumbed 11-21, 21-10, 22-20 against his 19th-ranked opponent.
Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand, semi-finalists from last week’s Singapore Open, also secured their entry in the women’s doubles round of 16 after a 21-15, 21-11 straight-game win over Chinese Taipei’s Cheng Yu-Pei and Sun Yu Hsing. The Indian pair had ousted the same opponents in the opening round in Singapore.
In mixed doubles, India’s B Sumeeth Reddy and N Sikki Reddy survived a 57-minute-long three-game affair to beat the American pair of Vinson Chiu and Jennie Gai.
Indian ace PV Sindhu will begin her women’s singles campaign on Wednesday. Last year’s champions Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy won’t be defending their title in Indonesia. (ANI)
