Lakshya Sen faces Kidambi Srikanth in opening round of French Open | Badminton News


PARIS: Commonwealth Games champion Lakshya Sen will face his teammate Kidambi Srikanth in the opening match of the men’s singles French Open badminton tournament on Tuesday.
Sen and Srikkanth, the two best Indians in the world rankings, eighth and eleventh respectively, will face off for the second time in their careers.
Sen was the best Indian featured in the recent Denmark Open but he had lost against the lowest ranked Japanese Kodai Naraoka in the quarter-finals.
In their previous match, Srikkanth defeated Sen in a close fight en route to winning a historic silver medal at the 2021 World Championships.
The winner between the two Indians is set to meet Danish world number two Anders Antonsen in the next round of the World Tour 750 event.
HS Prannoy, who has been the most consistent player in the recent past, has an easy first-round exit against Daren Liew of Malaysia, against whom the Indian is 7-4 head-to-head.
World number 13 Prannoy had the misfortune to meet Sen in the second round of the Danish Open. This time he has big potential challengers in fifth seed Kento Momota and fourth seed Chou Tien Chen in the later laps if he gets past the first hurdle.
Prannoy ended a seven-game losing streak against Japanese world number 9 Momota at the 2022 World Championships and he would be looking to continue his winning streak.
Olympic bronze medalist Saina Nehwal will face Yvonne Li of Germany in the first round of women’s singles. Saina beat the German in their only meeting which happened in 2020.
Commonwealth Games gold medalists Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty are the only seeded Indians (7th) in the scrum and they find themselves in the same quarter as top-seeded duo Takuro Hoki and Yuo Kobayashi of Japan .
The other Indian doubles pair in the scrum, MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila will face fifth seed Fajar Alfian and Muhammad Rian Ardianto of Indonesia.
Treesa Jolly-Gayatri Gopichand and Ishaan Bhatnagar-Tanisha Crasto are also in the fray in women’s doubles and mixed doubles respectively.



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