French Open: Satwik/Chirag, Lakshya Sen, Treesa/Gayatri move to next round

Indian shuttlers endured a mixed day in the first round of the French Open Super 750 tournament as Satwiksairaj Rankireddy/Chirag Shetty, Treesa Jolly/Gayatri Gopichand, and Lakshya Sen won on Tuesday.

On the other hand, Priyanshu Rajawat and Ashwini Ponnappa/Tanisha Crasto lost.

Star Indian pair Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty advanced to the second round with a hard-fought straight-game win against Malaysia's Ong Yew Sin and Teo Ee Yi.

Champions in the 2022 edition of the tournament, Satwik/Chirag made a fine start by defeating the world number 12 pair of Malaysia in a match that went on to 47 minutes.

Satwik and Chirag, who finished second best in their last three tournaments, will face another Malaysian pair of Man Wei Chong and Kai Wun Tee in the next round.

In the women's doubles, Commonwealth Games bronze medallists Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand also progressed to the second round after claiming a 16-21, 21-19, 21-17 win over Ashwini Ponnappa and Tanisha Crasto in an all-Indian opening match in women's doubles.

It was a fine comeback win for the Indian pair as they got better of Ashwini/Tanisha despite losing the first game.

The two pairs are fighting to qualify for the Paris Olympics. While Tanisha-Ashwini is ranked 11th, Treesa-Gayatri is placed at 14th spot in the Olympic Games qualification ranking.

In men's singles, Lakshya Sen got better than Kanta Tsuneyama of Japan while Priyanshu Rajawat lost to world champion Viktor Axelsen.

Lakshya started the match by taking a lead of 5-1 but Tsuneyama made a comeback in the first game and won 21-15. Going into the second game, Lakshya minimized his errors and came back strongly.

Despite Tsuneyama fighting back, Lakshya won the second game 21-15 to force the decider.

In the final game, Lakshya was man-possessed and ran through Tsuneyama's defence to lead 11-2 at the mid-game break. After the mid-game break, Lakshay continued his dominance and took ten points to win the match with Tsuneyama taking just one point.

Priyanshu Rajawat tried his best but went down against world champion Viktor Axelsen in straight games. Viktor won 21-8, 21-15.

Indian singles stars Kidmabi Srikanth, PV Sindhu, and HS Prannoy will be in action tomorrow.