Hong Kong Open: Sindhu bows out in first round, Lakshya Sen advances

Hong Kong, September 10 : India's two-time Olympic medalist PV Sindhu's poor season continued as she bowed out of the ongoing Hong Kong Open badminton tournament in the opening round on Wednesday.

Competing at the Hong Kong Coliseum, Sindhu, the world number 14th, secured the opening game, but lost the match to world No. 27 Line Christophersen of Denmark by 15-21, 21-16, 21-19, as per Olympics.com.

This was Sindhu's first loss in six matches against Line and her sixth exit in the first round this year on the BWF World Tour, highlighting how poor the run has been.

In other women's singles match, Anupama Upadhyaya was also eliminated by fourth-seeded Japanese Tomoka Miyazaki by 21-17, 20-22, 21-14.

Coming to the men's singles competiton, the top-ranked singles player for India, Lakshya Sen, secured a well-fought win over Chinese Taipei's Olympian Wang Tzu-wei by 22-20, 16-21, 21-15 in an hour and 13 minutes.

Sen was extremely calm in a closely fought first game in the tie-break before he lost the second game, but in the decider, he had a healthy lead which helped him win.

Also, his singles' compatriots HS Prannoy and Kiran George also advanced to the second round following wins in straight games.

The world number 34 and former World Championships medalist Prannoy stunned the 14th-ranked Chinese Lu Guangzu, while George outclassed Singapore's Jason Teh. Prannoy's next round meeting will be against Lakshya, an exciting all-India clash.

Ayush Shetty, who is the only Indian to secure a BWF World Tour title this year, the US Open in June, came from being one game down to reach the next round with a 15-21, 21-19, 21-13 win over Chinese Taipei's Su Li-yang.

India's sole women's doubles entry, Rutaparna Panda and Swetaparna Panda, kept their run going with a 21-17, 21-9 win against local stars Oi Ki Vanessa Pang and Sum Yau Wong.

In the mixed doubles competition, the pairing of Dhruv Kapila/Tanisha Crasto was ousted in the first round of the mixed doubles after a 21-16, 21-11 defeat to Chinese Taipei's Chen Cheng Kuan/Hsu Yin-Hui.

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