Lakshya Sen and HS Prannoy make a bang in the All England Championship, start with a win

Birmingham: India’s Lakshya Sen and HS Prannoy cruised into the men’s singles second round of the All England Championships badminton tournament with hard-fought wins. Sen ousted fifth seed Chou Tien Chen of Chinese Taipei 21-18 21-19 in a close first round match in 48 minutes. This was the first win for the 21-year-old Lakshya from Almora against the world number five. Earlier, he had to face defeat against Tien Chen in two matches.

Earlier, world number nine Indian Prannoy got the better of Chinese Taipei’s Xu Wei Wang 21-19 22-20 in 49 minutes in straight games. With the win, Prannoy’s win-loss record against Wang became 5-3. The 30-year-old Prannoy from Kerala will next face third seed Anthony Sinisuka Ginting of Indonesia. Lakshya will next play against the winner of the match between Anders Antonsson and Rasmus Gemke.

Pranay looked in good shape. He started well and took five straight points to lead 11-4 at the break in the first game. The Indian, however, then hit a few shots outside and on the net to make it 11-14 for Wang. Prannoy made it 18-12 with four consecutive points but Wang took advantage of the Indian’s weakness to make it 16-19. Prannoy then hit two consecutive outside shots to level the scores at 19-19. Prannoy grabbed game point with a cross court smash and then followed it up with another smash to win the first game.

The second game saw a close contest right from the start. Wang leads 7-2. Prannoy, however, came back strongly to take a narrow 11-10 lead at the break. Both the players were tied at 16-16 after this. Prannoy made it 19-17 with two good returns but then gave Wang a chance to make a comeback and level the scores at 19-19.

Wang shot outside to give Prannoy a match point but he could not capitalize on it. Prannoy, however, kept his composure and won the match with Wang hitting the net.

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