Singapore Open: Sen, Srikanth bow out; Sindhu advances to second round

Singapore, May 29: Ace Indian shuttler P.V. Sindhu advanced to the second round of the women’s singles section of the Singapore Open BWF Super 750 badminton tournament, beating World No. 21 Line Kjaersfeldt 21-12, 22-20. However, in men’s singles, Lakshya Sen and Kidambi Srikanth retired out in the opening round.

After the first rally of the tie, Sindhu came out on top and took a 4-3 lead. Sindhu continued increasing her lead and ended the game 21-12. Her opponent Kjaersfeldt looked promising but Sindhu seemed to have an answer for everything.

The second game, which got intense in the end, was too dominated by Sindhu. However, a late comeback by Line forced Sindhu to make some cross-court errors as the Danish player took the lead at 16-19. The 28-year-old two-time Olympic medallist then saved four game points and took the momentum in her favour to end the match 22-20.

Lakshya Sen went down to World ranked 1 and reigning Olympic Champion Viktor Axelsen 13-21, 21-16, 13-21 after making a second-game comeback. It was the seventh defeat in the last eight matches for Lakshya against Axelsen.

Earlier, former World No.1 Srikanth retired from his opening round match after losing the first game 14-21 against Kodai Naraoka of Japan. Trailing 3-11 in the second game Srikanth had to bow out due to an injury, which is unknown for now.