Dutch Open | Lakshya Sen to face BM Rahul Bharadwaj in quarterfinals
Indian shuttlers Lakshya Sen and BM Rahul Bharadwaj will take on each other after they progressed to the quarterfinals of the men’s singles event at the Dutch Open Super 100 tournament in Almere on Thursday. Meanwhile, top seed Sameer Verma was knocked out by Japan’s Yusuke Onodera.
On a bad day for junior Indian shuttlers at the BWF Junior World Championships in Kazan, Russia, senior men at the Dutch Open in the Netherlands came good. Lakshya continued on his merry way since the Belgian Open win last month to enter the quarter-final stages after registering a fighting three-game win over Ygor Coelho of Brazil. The Almora-born 18-year-old Lakshya defeated Coelho 21-13, 16-21, 21-10 in a tough pre-quarterfinal contest that lasted for nearly 45 minutes.
Meanwhile, Rahul advanced to the last-eight round after a stunning victory over sixth seed Victor Svendsen of Denmark. The marathon contest that lasted an hour and 14 minutes ended with the scoreline reading 21-17, 24-26, 21-8. The two Indians will now face each other in the quarterfinals.
On the other hand, Verma, who had skipped the tournaments in China and Korea due to fitness issues, went down in three games against Japan’s Yusuke Onodera, later in the day. After losing a tight opening game, he rallied back to level things in the second but eventually went down 21-18, 19-21, 21-14 in exactly an hour.
