Kowloon, Hong Kong: Two hours prior to his men's singles opening round match on Wednesday, Indian shuttler Lakshya Sen withdrew from the Hong Kong Open Super 500 badminton competition, handing Chinese Taipei's Su Li Yang a walkover.
In the absence of World No. 7 HS Prannoy, Lakshya, the eighth seed, was the highest-ranked Indian shuttler in the men's singles competition.
After losing in the first round at the China Open, Lakshya was seen as the biggest bet for the title in the absence of Prannoy, Kidambi Srikanth, and PV Sindhu. The trio will be part of the national camp for the Asian Games 2022.
After back-to-back ousters in the first round of the tournament, Lashya is likely to lose his 8th position in the BWF World Rankings. He last won a tournament at the Canada Open Super 500 in July.
Meanwhile, the women's doubles duo of Ashwini Ponnappa and Tanisha Crasto (ranked 50th) advanced to pre-quarterfinals with a 21-19, 21-19 win over the world no. 21 Chinese Taipei pair of Lee Chia Hsin and Teng Chun Hsun. In the mixed doubles, Ashwini, partnering with B Summeth Reddy, lost 16-21, 21-16, 18-21 to the Malaysian pair of Cheng Tang Jie and Toh Ee Wei in three games.
In men's doubles, Krishna Prasad Garaga and Vishnuvardhan Goud Panjala suffered a first-round exit after losing 14-21, 19-21 to the Korean duo of Ko Sung Hyun and Shin Baek Cheol. Priyanshu Rawat, World No.28, also suffered an early exit after going down 13-21, 14-21 to Kanta Tsuneyama of Japan.
In Women’s singles, Aakarshi Kashyap lost to Yvonne Li 18-21,10-21 in the opening round, while Malvika Bansod will face World No. 17 Zhang Yi Man of China.
With inputs from IANS