Hylo Open: Lakshya Sen enters second round, Srikanth bows out

Star Indian shuttler Lakshya Sen stunned fifth seed Christo Popov of France in straight games to enter the men’s singles pre-quarterfinals at the USD 475,000 Hylo Open Super 500 tournament here on Wednesday.

Lakshya, a 2021 World Championships bronze medallist who reached the finals at Hong Kong Open, defeated higher ranked Popov 21-16 22-20 in the opening round.

Lakshya will next face compatriot S Sankar Muthusamy Subramanian, who defeated Malaysia’s Jun Hao Leong 21-14 18-21 21-16 in another opening round match.

However, it was curtains for Kidambi Srikanth, who lost 19-21 11-21 to compatriot Kiran George in the men’s singles.

George will next face eight seed Toma Junior Popov of France, who beat Harry Huang of England 21-17 19-21 21-19.

There were some encouraging results from women’s singles as well with unseeded Shriyanshi Valishetty outsmarting third seed Line Højmark Kjaersfeldt of Denmark 21-19 21-12 in just 33 minutes.

Young Rakshitha Santhosh Ramraj also progressed to the round of 16 with 21-14 21-16 win over Clara Azurmendi of Spain.

Valishetty and Ramraj will meet each other in the second round in an all-Indian contest.

However, it was the end of the road for Anmol Kharb as she fought valiantly before losing 24-26 21-23 against eight seed Julie Dawall Jakobsen of Denmark in another women’s singles opening round match.