Lakshya Sen progressed to the quarter-final stage of the Canada Super Open 500 in Calgary on Thursday when he beat Brazil’s Ygor Coelho 21-15 21-11 in the second round.
PV Sindhu, the other Indian in the singles draw, moved to the quarter-final stage as well, without playing a game after her opponent Natsuki Nidaira of Japan withdrew to give a walkover to the Indian.
The Indian challenge ended in the men’s doubles category after Krishna Prasad Garaga and Vishnuvardhan Goud Panjala lost 9-21 11-21 to second seeds Mohammad Ahsan and Hendra Setiawan of Indonesia in the Round of 16.
It was a relatively quick and easy win for the world No 19 Sen who beat the Brazilian in 31 minutes. The latter had knocked out B Sai Praneeth 21-12, 21-17 in the opening round.
Although the first game saw both players stay level with each other up until 13-13, Sen went on a streak of 8 points to close out the opening game.
In the second game, Sen dominated the scoring right from the opening point and didn’t let Coelho have a look in, before wrapping up the match to progress to the quarter-final stage.
Sen will now face another qualifier in Belgium’s Julien Carraggi. The Indian had previously faced him in the 2021 Dutch Open quarter-final and beat him 16-21 22-20 21-7. Sen had gone on to reach the final that year and lost to Singapore’s Loh Kean Yew.
Sindhu will face China’s Gao Fang Jie, against whom she hasn’t won a match in three encounters so far, the latest being losing 9-21 21-16 18-21 in the women’s singles semi-finals of the 2023 Badminton Asia Mixed Team championships in February.