Badminton Roundup | Subhankar Dey advances to quarterfinal; Lakshya Sen, Sourabh Verma eliminated
India started the second round of the Li-ning Denmark Challenge on a mixed not with Subhankar Dey beating Japan’s Minoru Koga while Lakshya Sen and Sourabh Verma bowing out. India’s men’s pairing of Sawtiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty beat Scottish pair to advance into the quarterfinals.
After beating Finland’s Eetu Heino in the first round, Dey extended his winning run in the pre-quarterfinals as well where he was playing Estonia’s Raul Must. The Indian shuttler was the favourite going into the game and he won it 21-14, 21-13 in straight games.
Lakshya Sen also had a winning start to the tournament as he defeated local Mads Christophersen 21-16, 21-15 in the first round. In the second quarters, Sen was up against Germany’s Kai Schaefer and it should have been an easy run for the Indian. However, after winning the first game 21-12 very comfortably, Sen went on to lose the next two 15-21 and 19-21.
Verma was the most experienced of the lot and was India’s biggest hope from the tournament. And he started by living up to his expectations and beating England’s Alex Lane 21-14, 21-16. He was expected to continue it against France’s Lucas Claerbout but he lost 21-16, 21-10, 19-21.
In women’s singles category, Akarshi Kashyap lost 12-21, 13-21 to Denmark’s top seed Line Højmark Kjaersfeldt while Neha Pandit went down 9-21, 11-21 against local sensation Mia Blichfeldt.
In the doubles category, India’s Rankireddy and Chetty have kept the hopes up with an easy 21-18, 216 against Scotland’s Alexander Dunn and Adam Hall. The mixed doubles pair of Rohan Kapoor and Kuhoo Garg lost to Denmark’s Lasse Mølhede and Sara Lundgaard.
