India’s HS Prannoy progressed to the second round of the India Open Super 750 badminton tournament with a straight-game win over Chou Tien Chen of Chinese Taipei on Tuesday.
The World No.9 Indian dished out a compact game to outwit Chen, ranked 13th, 21-6 21-19 in a 42-minute clash at the KD Jadhav Indoor hall here.
It will be an all-Indian second round clash with Lakshya Sen and Priyanshu Rajawat set to face off in their opening match.
“The planning was spot on in the first game. I was executing good shots from back of the court. He was not getting the length well, so I had to wrap it up Prannoy he said after the match.
“In the second game, he was pushing the speed and finishing a lot of shuttle from the back but I was happy to fight back from 11-16 and towards the end, I was playing the right game.
“It was important to close it in two games because if it is the third game, then it is always a tough one as he (Chen) pushes with his experience.”
Prannoy got into a nice rhythm right at the start, mixing his half smashes, drops and tosses from the back court.
Chen struggled to negotiate the length of the shuttle that Prannoy was playing and ended up committing too many errors. Soon, the Indian had an overwhelming 11-2 lead at the break.
He continued to dominate the rallies as Chen surrendered the opening game meekly in the end.
A small crowd had gathered by the time Prannoy took the court and chants of “HSP” and “India” filled the air in the stadium.
Prannoy, who was silently going about his business till then, too started celebrating his points gusto in the second game which had started on an even note.
However, he found himself 11-16 down when Chen stepped up and started playing some good cross court shots from the back court.
Just when it seemed the match will go into the decider, Prannoy fought back at 16-16 with a precise net return.
The Indian played more soft shots and drew Chen to the nets, extracting errors from his opponent to eventually nose ahead.
Priyanshu Rajawat beats Lakshya Sen
Priyanshu Rajawat got the better of Lakshya Sen as he showed the latter the exit door in the very first round of the home tournament.
Rajawat registered a 16-21, 21-16, 21-13 win over Sen, despite losing out the opening game of the fixture.
The turnaround win from the 21-year-old over his compatriot, who is a year older than Rajawat, takes the youngster from Madhya Pradesh into the second round of the event, where he will take on veteran Prannoy on Wednesday.
However, there wasn’t much joy for the Indian camp in the doubles events as the teams of Tressa Jolly- Gayatri Gopichand, Dhruv Kapila- Arjun MR, Rutaparna Panda-Swethaparna Panda all went down in a tame fashion in the Round of 32 rather unceremoniously.
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