US Open Badminton 2023: Sindhu, Sen ease into second round; Sai Praneeth crashes in opening round

Council Bluffs (USA), July 13: Top Indian shuttlers PV Sindhu and Lakshya Sen eased into the second round of US Open badminton 2023 tournament following straight games win in their respective matches on Wednesday (July 12) in Council Bluff, Iowa, USA.

Two-time Olympic medallist Sindhu defeated her American opponent of Indian origin Disha Gupta. The third-seeded India defeated the American 21-15, 21-12 in just 27 minutes to enter the second round, where she will face Sung Shuo Yun of Chinese Taipei on Thursday (July 13).

Commonwealth Games 2022 and Canada Open 2023 champion Sen, on the other hand, got the better of Finland's Kalle Koljonen in the first round. The in-form Indian beat his Finnish opponent 21-8, 21-16 in less than 30 minutes. He will next face Jan Louda of Czech Republic in the second round.

In another men's singles match, S Sankar Muthusamy Subramanian, who had entered the main draw of the tournament after two tough qualifying matches, defeated his tricky Irish opponent Nhat Nguyen 21-11, 21-16 in the first round match that lasted for 44 minutes.

While the trio reached the second round, it was curtains for B Sai Praneeth and Gadde Ruthvika Shivani, who suffered first round exits following contrasting defeats. Sai Praneeth lost to world No. 7 Li Shi Feng of China after a gruelling match that lasted three games, while Shivani was no match to Lin Hsian Ti of Chinese Taipei.

Praneeth gave a tough fight to second seed Shi Feng before going down 16-21, 21-14, 21-19 in one hour and 14 minutes. India's 61-ranked player Ruthvika Shivani went down to Lin Hsiang Ti of Chinese-Taipei 14-21, 11-21 in a women's singles match that lasted for just 27 minutes.

Earlier on Tuesday (July 11), former Commonwealth Games champion Parupalli Kashyap retired midway into his second match after trailing 21-23 7-11 against Koo Takahashi of Japan. He had won his first match against England's Rohan Midha 21-19, 21-17.

Men's doubles pair of Krishna Prasad Garaga and Vishnuvardhan Goud Panjala, however, couldn't cross the opening round losing 14-21, 14-21 to Chinese Taipei's Lin Yu Chieh and Su Li Wei.

(With PTI inputs)