Star Indian shuttlers HS Prannoy and Lakshya Sen progressed to the men’s singles next round of the World Championships with straight-game wins over Finland’s Kalle Koljonen and Mauritius’ Georges Julien Paul respectively. Lakshya Sen advanced to the third round of World Championships with a straight-game demolition of Korea’s Jeon Hyeok Jin in men’s singles on Tuesday.
Sen, bronze medallist at the 2021 edition, prevailed 21-11 21-12 over the world number 51 Korean. The 11th seeded Indian is likely to face third seeded Kunlavut Vitidsarn from Thailand in the next round. The Indian, thus, settled his score against the Korean, who had defeated him in their only meeting at the Asia Team Championship in 2022.
Sen was alert and took the initiatives during the rallies, showing his retrieval skills, speed and shot selection to dominate the proceedings. The Indian lead 5-1 and slowly kept extending the gap against a struggling Jeon, who lacked the finishing punch during the fast-paced rallies. Sen entered the interval with 11-6 lead and kept things under a firm grip even after resumption to quickly move to 18-11 before sealing the first game with three straight points.In the second game, Sen opened up a 4-1 lead before extending it to 10-5 with a whipping forehand return. Another straight jump smash helped the Indian make it 11-5 at the break. Sen continued to construct his points and got behind the shuttle early to produce clean winners to grab eight match points and converted it in his second attempt. Prannoy, the world number 9, who reached the quarterfinals in the last two editions, saw off the left-handed Koljonen 24-22, 21-10 to extend his head-to-head count over the Finnish player to 3-0. Former world number one Kidambi Srikanth made a first-round exit, going down to 14th seed Kenta Nishimoto of Japan 14-21 14-21 in a 47-minute battle.