Lakshya out , Rankireddy-Shetty lose in Rd 1 of Malaysia Masters

Kuala Lumpur, January 7

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Lakshya Sen failed to qualify for the main draw while the pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty crashed out in the first round as Indian shuttlers got off to a poor start at Malaysia Masters here today.

Rising player Lakshya went down to Denmark’s Hans-Kristian Solberg Vittinghus 21-11 18-21 14-21 in the men’s singles qualifiers that lasted 49 minutes. Lakshya’s compatriot Shubhankar Dey also failed to make the main draw after losing 15-21 15-21 to Malaysia’s Liew Daren in the qualifiers of the Super 500 tournament.

The biggest upset of the day for India, however, was the ouster of the world No. 12 men’s doubles duo Rankireddy and Shetty, who fought hard for 52 minutes before going down 15-21 21-18 15-21 to world No. 19 pair Ong Yew Sin and Teo Ee Yi of Malaysia. It was a bad day in office for Indian women too as doubles pair of Pooja Dandu and Sanjana Santosh also failed to make the main draw. Dandu and Santosh lost to the Indonesian pair of Siti Fadia Silva Ramadhanti and Ribka Sugiarto 15-21 10-21.

On Wednesday, Parupalli Kashyap will open his campaign against top seed Kento Momota, while Kidambi Srikanth will take on Chinese Taipei’s Chou Tien-Chen in the men’s singles opening round. Sameer Verma will take on Thailand’s Kantaphon Wangcharoen, while H S Prannoy will be up against Japan’s Kanta Tsuneyama in the opening round. B Sai Praneeth, meanwhile, will face Denmark’s Rasmus Gemke.

The Indian women singles shuttlers will also open their campaigns tomorrow with PV Sindhu taking on Russia’s Evgeniya Kosetskaya, while Sania Nehwal will be up against Lianne Tan of Belgium. — PTI