Australian Open | Lakshya Sen, Ashwini Ponnappa- Rankireddy ousted in qualifiers
After Lakshya Sen started off with a win against Malaysia’s Teck Zhi Soo in the Australian Open qualifiers, his progress into the knockout stages was halted by Thailand’s Tanongsak Saensomboonsuk. Mixed doubles pair of Ashwini Ponnappa and Swastiksairaj Rankireddy also lost their match.
Sen had an extremely easy match against Malaysia’s Soo in the first qualifier and he waltzed past the player with relative ease. In the first game, the best the Malaysian could do was keep the score line 4-4, following which Sen opened a huge gap at 14-5 and eventually won the game 21-8. The second game was expected to be competitive but it was quite the opposite as Sen repeated the same scoreline to win the match in straight games.
Sen’s real competition was in the second and final qualifier. The Thai opened up an early lead at 1-5, something Sen could never reduce. The closest he came to it was 8-13 and lost the first game 21-11. The Indian really gave it a go in the second and deciding one and as the game went right to the wire before Sen eventually lost 23-21.
The only other Indian challenge on the day was in the mixed doubles where the pair of Ashwini Ponnappa and Swastiksairaj Rankireddy was taking on Taiwan’s Wang Chi-Lin and Cheng Chi Ya. The Indian pair wasn’t expected to topple the Chinese Taipei but after losing the first game 17-21, they bounced back in the second game by winning it 21-12. However, that was the only positive from the game as India eventually lost 16-21.
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