Lakshya Sen suffers 11th first round exit of the season, crashes out of French Open after loss against Nguyen

New Delhi [India], October 21 (ANI): India's Lakshya Sen suffered an early exit from the French Open 2025 badminton tournament after losing in straight games to Ireland's Nhat Nguyen in the opening round of the men's singles on Tuesday, as per Olympics.com.

Playing at the Glaz Arena in Cesson-Sevigne, world No. 16 Lakshya went down 7-21, 16-21 to the world No. 29 Irish shuttler in a 43-minute contest.

Nguyen took control right from the start, racing to a 5-1 lead with a flurry of quick points. Lakshya trailed 6-11 at the mid-game interval and managed to add just one more point before Nguyen wrapped up the opening game comfortably.

The second game followed a similar pattern, with Nguyen surging ahead 6-1 early on. Although Lakshya narrowed the gap to 7-5, another run of points saw Nguyen take an 11-7 lead at the break. The Indian tried to fight back in the latter half, but the early deficit proved too much to overcome.

This was the fourth meeting between the two players, and it marked Nguyen's first win over Lakshya. The result also meant another disappointing start for the Indian, who has now faced 11 first-round losses in 17 BWF World Tour events this season.

Despite this setback, Lakshya has shown flashes of form recently, he reached the final of the Hong Kong Open last month and made it to the quarter-finals of the Denmark Open, defeating both Nguyen and world No. 2 Anders Antonsen.

In mixed doubles, Rohan Kapoor and Ruthvika Gadde advanced to the pre-quarterfinals after beating Ukraine's Oleksii Titov and Yevheniia Kantemyr 21-12, 21-19 in their round of 32 match. The Indian duo will now face the world No. 6 French pair Thom Gicquel and Delphine Delrue on Thursday.

Meanwhile, Indian men's doubles pair Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy were runners-up at both the Hong Kong Open and China Masters last month will begin their campaign on Wednesday as they continue their search for their first title of the season. (ANI)

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