Indian shuttlers Lakshya Sen and Subhankar Dey failed to reach the main round of the Indonesia Masters badminton tournament after losing their qualifying round matches in Jakarta on Tuesday.
The 18-year-old Sen, the 2018 Youth Olympic Games silver-medallist, lost 13-21 12-21 to Tanongsak Saensomboonsuk of Thailand in a 32-minute contest. Sen, who had a breakthrough year on the senior circuit in 2019, bowed out against a player ranked four places lower than him currently, albeit more experienced.
Dey, who finished runners-up in the Italian International last year, went down 16-21, 12-21 to another Thai player Suppanyu Avihingsanon in a qualifying round match that lasted 38 minutes.
This was the second week on the trot that the two Indian players have lost in the first round of qualifiers after defeats against higher-ranked players in Kuala Lumpur at the Malaysia Masters last Tuesday.
There was a defeat in women’s doubles as well for the Indian contingent with Siti Ramadhanti and Ribka Sugiarto defeating Pooja Dandu and Sanjana Santosh 21-16, 21-6 in just 26 minutes.
Top Indian shuttlers PV Sindhu and Saina Nehwal in women’s singles and Kidambi Srikanth, B Sai Praneeth, HS Prannoy, Parupalli Kashyap ansd Sameer Verma in men’s singles will play in the main round of the BWF Super 500 tournament, starting on Wednesday.
Sindhu and Nehwal are on track to meet in the second round should they beat their Japanese opponents in the round of 32.