Indonesia Open badminton: Kidambi Srikanth, Lakshya Sen crash out early

India’s top-ranked badminton players Lakshya Sen and Kidambi Srikanth crashed out in the first round of the men’s singles event at the Indonesia Open 2022 in Jakarta on Wednesday.

World championships silver medallist Kidambi Srikanth, 11th in the badminton rankings, lost to 41st-ranked Brice Leverdez of France 23-21, 21-10 in 42 minutes at the Istora Stadium.

Kidambi Srikanth narrowly led Brice Leverdez 11-10 at the first break. However, Brice Leverdez chipped away points regularly and eked out a close win.

Brice Leverdez took the former world No. 1 Kidambi Srikanth by a complete surprise in the second game and sealed his first win against Kidambi Srikanth in six attempts.

India’s top-ranked men’s badminton player Lakshya Sen, meanwhile, lost to his senior compatriot HS Prannoy in the first round.

HS Prannoy, the world No. 23, took just 34 minutes to overcome world No. 9 Lakshya Sen 21-10, 21-9 for the first time in three meetings.

Lakshya Sen took an early 8-6 lead in the first game. However, HS Prannoy amped up his pace to take 15 of the next 17 points.

The second game was completely dominated by HS Prannoy from the first point as Lakshya Sen could not match the intensity of his senior opponent and committed a series of unforced errors.

Earlier this year, Lakshya Sen had defeated HS Prannoy at the India Open quarter-finals in three games before beating him again at the German Open convincingly.

HS Prannoy will face world No. 12 NG Ka Long Angus of Hong Kong in the second round of the BWF Super 1000 tournament.

Earlier in the day, India’s men’s doubles pair of MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila defeated the world No. 30 pair of Keiichiro Matsui and Yoshinori Takeuchi of Japan 27-25, 18-21, 21-19 to book a clash against Tokyo 2020 silver medallists Liu Yu Chen and Ou Xuan Yi of China.

Both the Indian women’s pairs competing on the day were knocked out.

Haritha Manazhiyil Harinarayan-Ashna Roy lost to Jeong Na Eun-Kim Hye Jeong 21-9, 21-8 while Ashwini Bhat and Shikha Gautam lost to China’s Zhang Shuxian and Zheng Yu 21-9, 21-10.

PV Sindhu, the only Indian women’s singles player at the event, lost to world No. 9 He Bing Jiao of China in the opening round on Tuesday.