Indian shuttlers continued their exit at the Japan Open Super 750 badminton tournament with Lakshya Sen and the men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty crashing out in the second round of the tournament on Thursday.
World No. 18 Lakshya's inconsistent performance resulted in his 19-21, 11-21 defeat to Japan’s Kodai Naraoka in a men’s singles second round match which lasted for almost an hour. The 23-year-old, who had looked formidable in the opener, where he registered a 21-11, 21-18 win over China’s Wang Zheng Xing, was not able to maintain his momentum.
In the men’s doubles fixture, Satwik and Chirag lost 22-24, 14-21 to fifth-seeded Chinese duo of Liang Wei Keng and Wang Chang in a contest between former World No. 1 pairs. With this victory, Paris Olympics silver medallists Wei Keng and Wang Chang have consolidated their head-to head lead over the Indian pair to 7-2.
After a sluggish start, the Indian duo did well to take an 18-14 lead, but could not keep the tempo going as their Chinese opponents clinched the first game. The World Number 5 Chinese pair continued in the same manner in the second game as well as Satwik and Chirag struggled to land their smashes and also faltered in their defence to lose to Wei Ken and Chang for the fourth consecutive time.
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