Badminton, Swiss Open Super 300: Sen, Srikanth, Sindhu, Crasto-Ponnappa all register opening wins

Indian men’s singles shuttlers Lakshya Sen and Kidambi Srikanth both registered wins in the opening round of the 2024 Swiss Open Super 300 in Basel on Wednesday.

Sen beat Malaysia’s Leong Jun Hao 21-19, 15-21, 21-11 in 62 minutes while Srikanth took 43 minutes to beat Wang Tzu Wei of Chinese Taipei 21-17, 21-18.

Women’s singles player PV Sindhu also began her campaign in the tournament with a straight-game win (21-12, 21-13) over Thailand’s Pornpicha Choeikeewong.

In women’s doubles, the Indian pair of Ashwini Ponnappa and Tanisha Crasto beat the Indonesian duo of Meilysa Trias Puspitasari and Rachel Allessya Rose 21-18, 12-21, 21-19 to progress to the next round.

Sen began on the wrong foot in the opening game, with the seventh seed being unable to take a solid lead against Leong. After the mid-game break, the Malaysian opened up the game against Sen to take a 14-8 lead. But Sen then went on a five-point winning streak to reduce the gap to one point. After that, the Indian levelled the scoreline at 16-all and then 18-all and then went on to win the game 21-19.

The second game was dominated by Leong who kept pace with Sen in the opening exchanges before surging ahead with a 12-4 lead after the mid-game break. Although the Indian managed to fight back, he wasn’t able to close the gap and the Malaysian levelled the match at one-game all.

In the deciding game though, Sen came fighting back and raced to a 11-3 lead at the mid-game interval. The Indian kept his nerve and continued to rack up points, ultimately closing out the final game 21-11 to seal the match.

In the other matches that featured Indian players, the women’s doubles pairing of Priya Konjengbam and Shruti Mishra beat Chinese Taipei’s Huang Yu-Hsun and Liang Ting Yu 21-13, 21-19.

The men’s doubles duo of Hariharan Amsakarunan and Ruban Kumar Rethinasabapathi exited the tournament after a 19-21, 14-21 loss to Japan’s Kenya Mitsuhashi and Hiroki Okamura.

Later in the day, Kiran George and Priyanshu Rajawat will both be in action in men’s singles. The two mixed doubles pairs of Sumeeth B. Reddy and Sikki Reddy along with Sathish Kumar Karunakaran and Aadya Variyath will also play their Round of 32 matches.