Star Indian shuttler Lakshya Sen progressed to the quarterfinals with a straight-game win, but two-time Olympic medallist PV Sindhu’s campaign ended in the second round of the China Masters Super 750 badminton tournament here on Thursday.
Lakshya, who missed out on a bronze medal at the Paris Olympics, looked at his lethal best while disposing off Rasmus Gemke of Denmark 21-6 21-18 in a 46-minute men’s singles second round match.
Lakshya will have his work cut out in the quarterfinals as he will be up against third seed Anders Antonsen of Denmark, who defeated Japan’s Takuma Obayashi 21-15 21-18 in his second round match.
But it turned out to be another disappointing outing for Sindhu as she lost to Singapore’s Yeo Jia Min in a hard-fought women’s singles contest.
Defending champions Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, who returned to action after a break following the Paris Olympics, also moved to the quarterfinals of the men’s doubles with a 21-19 21-15 win over Danish pair of Rasmus Kjaer and Frederik Soggard.
The Asian Games gold medallist Indian duo will meet the Danish combination of Kim Astrup and Anders Skaarup Rasmussen, who are seeded second here, in the next round.
Lakshya started in an aggressive fashion and had his nose ahead over Gemke in the opening game.
He used his brilliant net play and clever court coverage to set up his points. Lakshya never looked in trouble as he enjoyed an upper hand over his rival to pocket the first game easily.
The second game, however, witnessed a closer contest with both the shuttlers fighting tooth and nail till the first 10 points before Lakshya took a slender one point lead at the halfway stage when Gemke hit the shuttle wide.
Lakshya’s brilliant pick ups from net was the hallmark of his game and he used booming court smashes to take a 14-12 lead.
Lakshya used his fast hands to force unforced errors from his opponent to take 20-16 lead.
