All England championship: Sindhu, Lakshya enter quarterfinals

Lakshya will next face Netherland's world no 36 Mark Caljouw. Sindhu will take on Japan's third seed Akane Yamaguchi.

Birmingham: Lakshya Sen on Thursday became the youngest Indian male shuttler to reach the All England Championship quarterfinals, where Olympic silver medallist P V Sindhu joined him with an easy win at the Super 1000 tournament here.

Sindhu recorded a dominant 21-8 21-8 win over Denmark’s Line Christophersen in a completely lop-sided second-round match. Earlier, the 19-year-old Lakshya from Almora, who had claimed five titles in 2019, saw off France’s Thomas Rouxel 21-18 21-16 to make it to his maiden quarterfinals. However, it was curtains for HS Prannoy and B Sai Praneeth after the duo went down in the men’s singles second round on Thursday.

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Lakshya will next face Netherland’s world no 36 Mark Caljouw. Sindhu will take on Japan’s third seed Akane Yamaguchi. In the men’s singles, Prannoy couldn’t find his way across world number 1 Kento Momota as the Indian lost 15-21 14-21. Praneeth then squandered a first-game advantage, losing 21-15 12-21 12-21 to second seed Viktor Axelsen of Denmark.

Also ousted from the tournament was the mixed doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Ashwini Ponnappa, who lost 19-21 9-21 to Japanese duo of Yuki Kaneko and Misaki Matsutomo in the opening round.

Earlier on Wednesday night, Saina Nehwal was forced to concede her opening women’s singles match after suffering an injury. Saina looked in considerable, troubled by her right thigh. She decided to retire after lagging behind (8-21 4-10) in her opening round match against seventh seed Mia Blichfeldt of Denmark.

Meanwhile, the Indonesian badminton team has withdrawn from the tournament after all players and officials were forced to isolate themselves for 10 days following a Covid-19 positive case of an unnamed passenger in their flight to London.

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