Japan Masters 2023: HS Prannoy wins on comeback, Lakshya Sen knocked out

HS Prannoy registered a win on his comeback from injury while Lakshya Sen lost to Kodai Naraoka in the first round of the ongoing Japan Masters 2023 Super 500 tournament on Wednesday.

Coming after an injury layoff after winning the bronze medal at the Asian Games 2023, World number eight HS Prannoy defeated Lee Cheuk Yiu of Hong Kong 22-20, 19-21, 21-17.

In a match that went over an hour, HS Prannoy won the first game 22-20 after fighting off the challenge from Lee who made a comeback from 7-14 to down to make it 20-20.

Lee came back in the second game and troubled Prannoy with his deceptive shots winning the game 21-19.

In the decider, HS Prannoy and Lee went toe-to-toe with each other till 15-15 after which Prannoy raced to a lead of 19-15 and then clinched the match 21-17.

Lakshya Sen was no match for third-seeded Kodai Naraoka of Japan as he lost to him in straight games in 45 minutes. In the first game, Kodai started with a big lead of 9-2 and never let go of the game to win 21-17.

While Lakshya showed some resistance in the first game, he surrendered in the second game. After being tied at 10-10, Kodai took 11 points on a trot to finish the match.

Earlier in the day, Priyanshu Rajawat, ranked 30th in the world, suffered a straight-game (21-15, 21-12) defeat to world no. 21 Lin Chun-Yi of Chinese Taipei. Lin took a mere 32 minutes to knock out Priyanshu.

On Tuesday, the men's doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty were knocked out in the first round.