Sydney, Nov 19: Five Indian shuttlers, including Lakshya Sen and HS Prannoy, dished out impressive performances to reach the men’s singles second round at the USD 475,000 Australian Open Super 500 event here on Wednesday.
Lakshya, a 2021 World Championships bronze-medallist, outplayed Chinese Taipei’s Su Li Yang 21-17 21-13, while Prannoy, a runner-up here in 2023, recovered from a poor opening game to beat world No. 85 Yohanes Saut Marcellyno 6-21 21-12 21-17 in 57 minutes in the first round match.
Commonwealth Games champion Lakshya will next face either Chi Yu Jen or Wang Tzu Wei.
The 33-year-old Prannoy, an Asian Games bronze-medallist and a 2023 World Championships bronze winner, will meet eighth seed Alwi Farhan of Indonesia.
World No. 32 Ayush Shetty, who claimed his maiden Super 300 title at the US Open earlier this year, eased past Canada’s Sam Yuan 21-11 21-15 in 33 minutes.
The 20-year-old from Karnataka, a bronze-medallist at the 2023 World Junior Championships, will take on fourth seed Kodai Naraoka of Japan.
Tharun Mannepalli, a semifinalist at the Macau Open, overcame Denmark’s Magnus Johannesen 21-13 17-21 21-19 in a 66-minute battle. The 2023 National Games gold-medallist will face fifth seed Lin Chun-Yi of Chinese Taipei.
Veteran Kidambi Srikanth, a 2021 World Championships silver-medallist, also advanced after outlasting world No. 20 Lee Chia Hao of Chinese Taipei 21-19 19-21 21-15 in a 64-minute contest.
Srikanth, who finished runner-up at the Malaysia Masters earlier this year, will next play either Japan’s Shogo Ogawa or Edward Lau.
Kiran George put up a spirited fight before going down 21-11 22-24 17-21 to sixth seed Kenta Nishimoto, who had beaten Lakshya en route to the final at the Japan Masters last week.
Indian mixed doubles pair of Mohit Jaglan and Lakshita Jaglan were knocked out by Canada’s Nyl Yakura and Crystal Lai 12-21 16-21 in another match.
Lakshya vs Su
In the opening game, Lakshya broke away from 5-5 to take an 11-6 lead at the break. He extended it to 15-7 before Su trimmed the gap to 12-15. Lakshya, however, maintained his control on the rallies and earned four game points after Su’s backhand found the net. He sealed the opener with a smash.
In the second game, the two fought neck-and-neck for the first 12 points before Lakshya once again asserted himself to take an 11-8 lead at the interval. Strong in attack and steady in defence, the Indian closed out the match with a sharp cross-court return that Su failed to connect properly. (PTI)
