Badminton, Swiss Open Super 300: Sen, Srikanth, Sindhu, Crasto-Ponnappa all register opening wins

Indian men’s singles shuttlers Lakshya Sen and Kidambi Srikanth both registered wins in the opening round of the 2024 Swiss Open Super 300 in Basel on Wednesday.

Sen beat Malaysia’s Leong Jun Hao 21-19, 15-21, 21-11 in 62 minutes while Srikanth took 43 minutes to beat Wang Tzu Wei of Chinese Taipei 21-17, 21-18.

Women’s singles player PV Sindhu also began her campaign in the tournament with a straight-game win (21-12, 21-13) over Thailand’s Pornpicha Choeikeewong.

In women’s doubles, the Indian pair of Ashwini Ponnappa and Tanisha Crasto beat the Indonesian duo of Meilysa Trias Puspitasari and Rachel Allessya Rose 21-18, 12-21, 21-19 to progress to the next round.

Sen began on the wrong foot in the opening game, with the seventh seed being unable to take a solid lead against Leong. After the mid-game break, the Malaysian opened up the game against Sen to take a 14-8 lead. But Sen then went on a five-point winning streak to reduce the gap to one point. After that, the Indian levelled the scoreline at 16-all and then 18-all and then went on to win the game 21-19.

The second game was dominated by Leong who kept pace with Sen in the opening exchanges before surging ahead with...

Read more