Defending champion HS Prannoy beat Germany’s David Peng 21-15, 21-18 in the opening round of the Swiss Open in Basel on Wednesday. However, victory wasn’t easy given that Prannoy wasn’t playiyn with own racquets after his entire kitbag was misplaced by Lufthansa Airlines during his journey from Mumbai to Basel.

The airline lost the kitbag leaving Prannoy helpless before he began his title defence. However, Yonex provided a couple of racquets for his match against Peng and he managed to enter the recond round with borrowed racquets.

Even the Go Sports Foundation tweeted to the airline to find out about Prannoy’s kit, which wasn’t found even hours before the match.

Prannoy later provided an update saying that his kitbag was sent to Mumbai instead of Basel. Prannoy will next face Scotland’s Kieran Merrilees.

Among the other Indians, Sameer Verma, who won his maiden Grand Prix Gold at the Syed Modi International in January, beat Hungary’s Gergely Krausz 21-10, 21-16 to enter round two of the Swiss championships. The 13th seed will now take on Japan’s Kanta Tsuneyama. Subhankar Dey had to dig deep as he came from a game down to beat Germany’s Alexander Roovers 17-21, 21-17, 21-15 to set up a clash with Slovakia’s Iztok Utrosa in the next round.

However, it was an early exit for Sourabh Verma and Lakhanee Sarang. Verma was beaten 21-14, 21-23, 12-21 by Denmark’s Rasmus Gemke. Lakhanee was simply outclassed 11-21, 5-21 by Tsuneyama of Japan.