All England Championships: HS Prannoy, Lakshya Sen made to fight in opening fixtures, enter second round

PTI

Birmingham, March 14

Lakshya Sen and HS Prannoy produced superlative performances to progress to the second round of the All England Championships with hard-fought straight-game wins in the men’s singles competition here today.

In a high-intensity match, Sen moved with speed and mounted a pinpoint attack on the lines to outwit fifth seed Chou Tien Chen of Chinese Taipei 21-18 21-19 in 48 minutes. The 21-year-old, who had reached the final in the last edition, thus claimed his first win over the world No. 5 after losing twice earlier.

Earlier, Prannoy survived some anxious moments before prevailing over Chinese Taipei’s Tzu Wei Wang.

The world No. 9 Indian eked out a 21-19 22-20 win over Wang in the 49-minute opening round clash to take his head-to-head record against the Taiwanese to 5-3.

Prannoy looked in good touch as he reeled off five points on the trot to zoom to a comfortable 11-4 lead. However, the Indian was guilty of missing the lines twice and also found the net, allowing Wang to cut down the deficit to three points at 11-14.

Prannoy managed to pull away to 18-12 with four straight points before Wang broke the run of points with an aggressive return after a fast-paced rally.

Wang then punished Prannoy for his weak returns and moved to 16-19 with a deceptive net return. A backhand going wide and then another one going long from Prannoy brought Wang to 19-19.

Prannoy then unleashed a crosscourt smash to move to game point and then sent down another straight smash to close out the game.

The second game was a tightly fought battle from the word go as Wang opened up a 7-2 lead. Prannoy levelled the scores, only to miss the lines at his opponent’s forehand corner twice. He eventually fired a booming smash to take a one-point lead at the break. The two engaged in a slugfest next, moving neck and neck till 16-16.

Two venomous returns gave Prannoy a 19-17 lead but he once again squandered it as Wang made it 19-19. The Taiwanese went long next to hand a match point to the Indian, who wasted it. However, Prannoy ensured there were no last-minute hiccups as he won the contest.

The match between Chou and Sen expectedly turned out to be high-paced contest. Chou took a 3-1 lead but Sen clawed back to lead 7-6 after playing some short rallies. The Indian led 11-8 at the mid-game interval. Sen kept a firm grip to move to 15-9 but Chou won eight of the next 10 points to level at 17-17, only to give it all away with two errors. A good judgement at the baseline took Sen to 19-17. A lucky net chord helped Chou make it 18-19 but he made another error to gift two game points to Sen, who converted it at the first opportunity. After being locked 5-5 in the second game, Sen smashed out twice before producing a forehand flick to keep it 7-8 after a long rally.

Sen looked to step up the attack, while Chou tried to vary the pace and prolong the rallies. However, Sen managed to eke out a one-point advantage at the break.

Looking for perfection, Chou erred as Sen moved to 15-12. Sen wriggled out of a tricky situation with an immaculate shot and followed it with a powerful smash to lead 16-13. The Indian inched closer to victory with another on-the-line return and then produced a flurry of smashes to move to 19-17. Chou made it 18-19 before gifting two match points to Sen with a service error. The Taiwanese saved one with a smash before Sen unleashed a booming return to seal the contest.

#England #HS Prannoy #Lakshya Sen