Vietnam Open 2017: Lakshya Sen enters second round, Siril Verma bows out

In a tale of contrasting fortunes for two of India’s most promising rising stars, the junior World No. 1 Lakshya Sen progressed to the second round but former junior World No. 1 Siril Verma crashed out of the $65,000 Yonex Sunrise Vietnam Open 2017 held at Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam on Tuesday.

Sen made short work of the World No. 401 Jin Lei Chuang of Singapore, 21-9, 21-4 in just 22 minutes. The Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy product has been in sizzling form of late and won the Bulgarian Open International Series title just last month which catapulted him to his career-best ranking of 138th.

Currently ranked 139th, the Indian will face the 15th seeded Abhishek Yelegar in a mouthwatering all-Indian second round clash.

Yelegar had to work harder for his first round victory. The 23-year-old dropped a game but rebounded impressively to get the better of Thailand’s 144th-ranked Adulrach Namkul, 21-15, 14-21, 21-11 in a 50-minute battle.

Former Junior World Championships silver medallist Siril Verma did not have the same fortunes as he went down to the 14th seeded Yu Igarashi of Japan, 11-21, 19-21 in 35 minutes.

C Rohit Yadav also departed following a 7-21, 14-21 loss to Chinese Taipei’s 99th ranked Lu Chia Hung.

Earlier, 19-year-old Shreyanshi Pradeshi booked her berth in the women’s singles main draw with a 6-21, 21-12, 21-17 win over Vietnam’s Le Thu Huyen in the final round of qualifying. She will meet fellow Indian Vaidehi Choudhari for a spot in the second round of the main draw.

The men’s doubles team of Arun George and Sanyam Shukla pulled off an upset 21-17, 22-20 win over the fourth seeds Lu Chia Pin and Wu Yuan Cheng in the final round of qualifying. They take on the fifth seeded Indian combine of Arjun MR and Shlok Ramchandran in Round 1.

The young Indian brigade will be aiming for the titles at the Vietnam Open in the absence of the top shuttlers of the country, who are resting following the World Championships that finished in the last week of August. Saina Nehwal, PV Sindhu, Srikanth Kidambi and the rest of the big stars will be back next week at the Korea Open Superseries that begins in Seoul on September 12.