Jakarta, Jan 24: Star India shuttler Lakshya Sen extended his struggling run on the international circuit with a loss in the second round of the Indonesia Masters Super 500 badminton tournament here on Thursday.The 10th-ranked Indian went down against Japan’s Kenta Nishimoto 16-21 21-12 21-23.
Earlier in the day, mixed doubles pair of Dhruv Kapila and Tanshia Crasto squandered an early lead to go down 21-18 15-21 19-21 against Malaysia’s Pang Ron Hoo and Su Yin Cheng in the second round.
Sen, an Asian Games silver medallist and Commonwealth Games gold winner, made a poor start to the match as he lost the first game.
The Indian’s famed defence was ably tackled by the lower-ranked Nishimoto as he took a 9-3 lead and never looked back, despite Sen trying to make a comeback at 10-11. But Nishimoto employed fast rallies and closed out the first game comfortably.
Sen made a fast start to the second game and raced to a 6-3 lead with an aggressive smash.
Nishimoto opted for long rallies to tire out Sen but the Indian’s smart strokeplay handed him a 11-6 lead at the break.
Nishimoto then committed plenty of errors at the net as Sen’s retrieving capacity was on full display to extend his lead to 16-8.
The Japanese was troubled by the drift as Sen picked up points at will to close out the second game at 21-12 and force the match into the decider.
With change of sides, it was then Sen’s turn to struggle as Nishimoto raced to a 5-1 lead in the decider.
But a calm and composed Sen kept up up with his opponent till 7-7.
Sen took the lead for the first time in the decider with a jump smash but committed errors due to the drift to trail 9-11 at the final break of the tie and never really got his footing into the match.