Indian shuttlers Lakshya Sen and BM Rahul Bharadwaj progressed to the quarterfinals of the men’s singles event at the Dutch Open Super 100 tournament in Almere, Netherlands on Thursday but top seed Sameer Verma was knocked out.
Lakshya, who had claimed the Belgian Open last month, entered the quarterfinals after registering a fighting three-game win over Ygor Coelho of Brazil.
The 18-year-old from Almora defeated Coelho 21-13, 16-21, 21-10 in a tough pre-quarterfinal contest that lasted for 43 minutes.
Rahul too advanced to the last eight round after stunning sixth seed Victor Svendsen of Denmark 21-17, 24-26, 21-8 in a marathon one hour and 14 minutes contest.
The two Indians have been pitted against each other in the quarterfinals.
Later in the day, Verma went down in three games against Japan’s Yusuke Onodera in three games.
Verma, who had skipped events in China and Korea due to fitness issues, went down 21-18, 19-21, 21-14 in exactly an hour.