India’s ace badminton players PV Sindhu and Lakshya Sen entered to the round 2 of the Canada Open 2023 BWF Super 500 event in Calgary on Wednesday.
Two-time Olympic medallist PV Sindhu, the world No. 15 in the latest women’s singles badminton rankings, registered a comfortable 21-16, 21-9 win over world No. 62 Talia Ng of Canada in the opening round.
Commonwealth Games 2022 champion Lakshya Sen, meanwhile, stunned world No. 4 Kunlavut Vitidsarn of Thailand 21-18, 21-15 in a hard-fought first-round men’s singles match.
Competing on the badminton courts of the Markin-MacPhail Centre, PV Sindhu and Talia went toe-to-toe in the early stages. With the scores tied at 13-all, PV Sindhu unleashed a series of smashes to gain the upper hand and pocketed the opening game.
PV Sindhu carried the momentum into the second game as she led Talia Ng 4-0 early on. The Canadian offered a brief resistance to reduce the gap to 6-5. However, the local badminton player failed to match the Indian shuttler’s intensity as PV Sindhu bagged seven consecutive points and wrapped up the match with ease.
Former world champion PV Sindhu will next play Japan’s world No. 27 Natsuki Nidaira in the round of 16.
Later in the day, Lakshya Sen and second seed Kunlavut Vitidsarn were closely matched in the first game. Both shuttlers were involved in an intense battle but Lakshya Sen held his nerve to take the lead.
The second game, too, was a closely-fought affair. The Indian badminton player, however, raised his game in the final exchanges and sealed the encounter in 38 minutes.
In the other men’s singles matches, India’s B Sai Praneeth crashed out after losing 21-12, 21-17 to Brazil’s Ygor Coelho, who will be Lakshya Sen’s opponent in the second round.
Another Indian badminton player Gadde Ruthvika Shivani lost 21-12, 21-3 to Thailand’s Supanida Katethong in the first round of the women’s singles.
Commonwealth Games 2014 gold medallist Parupalli Kashyap had bowed out in the men’s singles qualifying round on Tuesday.
The Canada Open 2023 is the fourth Super 500 tournament of the 2023 BWF World Tour calendar after Indonesia Masters, Malaysia Masters and the Thailand Open.
