Olympic medalist shuttler PV Sindhu registered a first-round win in the women’s section of the US Open badminton Super 300 tournament at Council Bluffs, Iowa, on Thursday. While Lakshya Sen also made a comfortable win in his opening match to enter the second round.
Sindhu defeated Indian-American Disha Gupta 21-15, 21-12 in just 27 minutes. The Indian badminton player will face Sung Shuo Yun of Chinese Taipei in her second-round clash on Thursday. Earlier in the day, Lakshya Sen defeated Finland’s Kalle Koljonen 21-8, 21-16 in just 30 minutes. Lakshya, seeded third in the tournament, will go up against the Czech Republic’s Jan Louda in the next round.
In another men’s singles match, Sankar Subramanian defeated his Irish opponent Nhat Nguyen 21-11, 21-16 in 44 minutes in the first round. Nguyen is ranked 32nd in the world – 48 places above the Indian shuttler. Israel’s Misha Zilberman will be Muthusamy’s next opponent in the US Open Badminton tournament.
B Sai Praneeth, however, lost to world number seven Li Shi Feng in a three-game contest. Second seed Shi Feng of China defeated Praneeth 16-21, 21-14, 21-19 in a match that lasted one hour and 14 minutes. In another women’s singles match, India’s 61st-ranked Ruthvika also crashed out of the US Open badminton tournament. She lost 14-21, 11-21 to Chinese Taipei’s Lin Hsiang Ti in the first round of women’s singles.
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Heading into the first mid-game break of the match, PV Sindhu found herself trailing by two points against the 136th-ranked Disha Gupta. The two-time Olympic medallist, however, found her touch after the restart to win 12 of the next 16 points and took the lead. While the second game saw PV Sindhu take control of the proceedings right from the start. She wrapped up the match in just 27 minutes. This was the first time the two players played each other.
