The World Badminton Championship 2023 has started with mixed results for Indian badminton enthusiasts. While Lakshya Sen and HS Prannoy managed to win their respective matches to advance into the second round at Copenhagen in Denmark, the former world No. 1 Kidambi Srikanth suffered a first-round exit.
Lakshay was up against Finland’s Mauritius’ Georges Julien Paul in the first round. The Almora-born played some excellent badminton to sail into the next round as he defeated his Finnish opponent 21-12 21-7. The 22-year-old took an early lead in both games as his adversary was no match for him. The young Indian badminton prodigy was clinical in his performance and had the crowd’s support as well.
On the other hand, Prannoy had a stiff opening game as he was behind the eight ball. His opponent took an 8-4 lead in the opening game but the experienced Indian held his nerve to claim an 11-8 lead at the break. The opening game turned out to be a cliffhanger but went in favour of the 31-year-old Indian shuttler.
Treating the opening game as a wake-up call, Prannoy put up an impeccable effort in the second game to clinch it 21-10. However, things didn’t go down well enough for Srikanth who went down to Japan’s Kenta Nishimoto 14-21 14-21. A match that lasted for 47 minutes saw Srikanth struggle as he failed to build momentum and was outplayed convincingly.
In yet another disappointing result for India, the 33rd-ranked mixed doubles pair of Rohan Kapoor and N Sikki Reddy lost to Scotland’s Adam Hall and Julie Macpherson 14-21, 22-20, 18-21. The Indian duo put up a valiant effort in the game that lasted 59 minutes and even made a strong comeback after losing the opening 14-21 but the Scottish pair held its nerve in the big moments of the fixture and that made the difference.