Sen sails into quarters, Sindhu loses a thriller

Lakshya Sen progressed to the quarterfinals with a straight-game win, but two-time Olympics medallist PV Sindhu’s campaign ended in the second round of the China Masters Super 750 badminton tournament.

Lakshya, who missed out on a bronze medal at the Paris Olympics, looked at his lethal best while beating Rasmus Gemke of Denmark 21-6 21-18 in a 46-minute men’s singles second round match.

Lakshya will have his work cut out in the quarterfinals as he will be up against third seed Anders Antonsen of Denmark, who defeated Japan’s Takuma Obayashi 21-15 21-18 in his second round match.

But it turned out to be another disappointing outing for Sindhu as she lost to Singapore’s Yeo Jia Min in a hard-fought women’s singles contest.

World No. 19 Sindhu, who dispatched the higher-ranked Busanan Ongbamrungphan 21-17 21-19 in the opening round, fought valiantly before going down 16-21 21-17 21-23 to Min in a match that lasted one hour and nine minutes.

It was curtains for the other two Indian women’s singles players — Anupama Upadhyaya and Malvika Bansod. Anupama lost 7-21 14-21 to Japan’s Natsuki Nidaira, Malvika was thrashed 9-21 9-21 by Supanida Katethong of Thailand.