Lakshya, Satwik-Chirag storm into quarterfinals

TOKYO: India’s former World Championship bronze medallist Lakshya Sen stormed into the men’s sin-gles quarterfinals of the Japan Open on Thursday, beating Kanta Tsuneyama of Japan in straight games in a sec-ond-round clash here.

The 21-year-old Sen, currently ranked 13th in World Rankings, defeated Tsuneyama 21-14, 21-16 in a 50-minute encounter in the BWF World Tour Super 750 event which has a total prize fund of USD 800,000.

In men’s doubles, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, who won the Korea Open last week, also ad-vanced to the quarterfinals by beating Denmark’s pair of Jepp Bay and Lasse Molhedge 21-17, 21-11 in straight sets.

However, India suffered a setback as the top women’s doubles pair of Treesa Jolly and Pullela Gayatri Go-pichand lost to the World No.7 pair of Nami Matsuyama and Chiharu Shida from Japan, 21-23, 19-21 in just under an hour.

Playing on Court 1 at the Yoyogi National Gymnasium, Lakshya Sen took an early lead in the first game and opened up a 5-1 lead. Though his Japanese opponent reduced the margin to 7-5, Sen won the next five points in a row to extend it to 12-5. Tsuneyama again fought back to cut down the lead to 16-14, the Indian shuttler won five consecutive points to win the game.

The second game was closer as the players went neck-and-neck till 6-6 before Sen surged ahead to 10-7. Tsune-yama reduced the margin to 12-11 as they fought hard for each point till 16-16 before Lakshya won the next five points to win the game and match in 50 minutes.

On the adjacent Court 2, Satwik and Chirag opened a 5-2 lead in the first game and maintained the edge and they went ahead 10-6 soon. The Danes levelled scores at 12-12 and the two pairs went neck and neck till 15-14 before the Indians surged ahead to 19-14 and went on to win the game 21-17.

In the second game, the Danes opened a 5-2 lead, but the Indians caught up with them at 5-5 before opening a 9-5 lead winning seven points in a row. From 11-8, Satwik and Chirag claimed the next six points to open up a 17-8 lead and went on to win the game 21-11. IANS

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