Sen conquers Antonsen, Sindhu falls

Birmingham, March 14

India’s Lakshya Sen recorded a stunning three-game win over world No. 3 Anders Antonsen to progress to the quarterfinals but an error-prone PV Sindhu lost in the women’s singles second round of the All England Championships here today.

The world No. 18 Sen, who had finished runner-up at the 2022 edition, fought his way back from a 2-8 deficit in the decider to prevail 24-22 11-21 21-14 over Antonsen, a three-time medallist at the World Championships, in a controversial second round match.

Sindhu, a double Olympics medallist, seemed to be in good touch as she fought hard against the world No. 1 South Korean but failed to curb her mistakes as she slipped to a 19-21 11-21 loss in their 42-minute clash.

It was the Indian’s seventh successive loss to the indomitable An, who had become the first South Korean women’s singles player to win the World Championships last year.

Sindhu tried to attack but her 22-year-old opponent looked in a different league as she varied the pace of the rallies and used her repertoire of strokes well to come up trumps. For Sindhu, things went downhill after the break in the second game as errors kept piling up.

“She is, of course, the top player now. I should have been much more patient, I made unforced errors. There were easy mistakes,” Sindhu said.

In women’s doubles, Tanisha Castro and Ashwini Ponnappa lost 21-11 11-21 11-21 to China’s Zhang Shu Xian and Zheng Yu.

Satwik-Chirag on the move

Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty started their campaign with a straight-game win late on Wednesday. The world No. 1 pair clinched a 21-18 21-14 win over Indonesia’s Mohammad Ahsan and Hendra Setiawan.

In men’s singles, Priyanshu Rajawat was beaten 21-19 11-21 21-9 by Chico Aura Dwi Wardoyo of Indonesia.