All England Championships: HS Prannoy, Lakshya Sen made to fight in opening fixtures, enter second round

Birmingham, March 14

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Lakshya Sen and HS Prannoy produced superlative performances to progress to the second round of the All England Championships with hard-fought straight-game wins in the men’s singles competition here today.

In a high-intensity match, Sen moved with speed and mounted a pinpoint attack on the lines to outwit fifth seed Chou Tien Chen of Chinese Taipei 21-18 21-19 in 48 minutes. The 21-year-old, who had reached the final in the last edition, thus claimed his first win over the world No. 5 after losing twice earlier.

Earlier, Prannoy survived some anxious moments before prevailing over Chinese Taipei’s Tzu Wei Wang.

The world No. 9 Indian eked out a 21-19 22-20 win over Wang in the 49-minute opening round clash to take his head-to-head record against the Taiwanese to 5-3.

Prannoy looked in good touch as he reeled off five points on the trot to zoom to a comfortable 11-4 lead. However, the Indian was guilty of missing the lines twice and also found the net, allowing Wang to cut down the deficit to three points at 11-14.

Prannoy managed to pull away to 18-12 with four straight points before Wang broke the run of points with an aggressive return after a fast-paced rally.

Wang then punished Prannoy for his weak returns and moved to 16-19 with a deceptive net return. A backhand going wide and then another one going long from Prannoy brought Wang to 19-19.

Prannoy then unleashed a crosscourt smash to move to game point and then sent down another straight smash to close out the game.

The second game was a tightly fought battle from the word go as Wang opened up a 7-2 lead. Prannoy levelled the scores, only to miss the lines at his opponent’s forehand corner twice. He eventually fired a booming smash to take a one-point lead at the break. The two engaged in a slugfest next, moving neck and neck till 16-16.

Two venomous returns gave Prannoy a 19-17 lead but he once again squandered it as Wang made it 19-19. The Taiwanese went long next to hand a match point to the Indian, who wasted it. However, Prannoy ensured there were no last-minute hiccups as he won the contest.

The match between Chou and Sen expectedly turned out to be high-paced contest. Chou took a 3-1 lead but Sen clawed back to lead 7-6 after playing some short rallies. The Indian led 11-8 at the mid-game interval. Sen kept a firm grip to move to 15-9 but Chou won eight of the next 10 points to level at 17-17, only to give it all away with two errors. A good judgement at the baseline took Sen to 19-17. A lucky net chord helped Chou make it 18-19 but he made another error to gift two game points to Sen, who converted it at the first opportunity. After being locked 5-5 in the second game, Sen smashed out twice before producing a forehand flick to keep it 7-8 after a long rally.

Sen looked to step up the attack, while Chou tried to vary the pace and prolong the rallies. However, Sen managed to eke out a one-point advantage at the break.

Looking for perfection, Chou erred as Sen moved to 15-12. Sen wriggled out of a tricky situation with an immaculate shot and followed it with a powerful smash to lead 16-13. The Indian inched closer to victory with another on-the-line return and then produced a flurry of smashes to move to 19-17. Chou made it 18-19 before gifting two match points to Sen with a service error. The Taiwanese saved one with a smash before Sen unleashed a booming return to seal the contest.