Indonesia Open 2022: Lakshya Sen & Kidambi Srikanth lose in the first round

We are on the 2nd day of the Indonesia Open in Jakarta and Indian shuttlers are having very mixed results. Day 2 had important games such as Lakshya Sen taking on HS Prannoy in an epic first-round clash and then Kidambi Srikanth set to take on Frenchman Brice Leverdez.

World No. 9 Lakshya was the favourite for the first match of the day as he got the better of Prannoy both the times they have met before, in 2022 itself.

But on this occasion of an all-Indian clash, HS Prannoy dominated Lakshya Sen in every aspect to win the game very easily with a score line of 21-10,21-9. From the word go, Lakshya looked out of confidence despite recently reaching the quarterfinals of the Indonesia Masters and Prannoy looked in supreme touch having played last in the glorious Thomas Cup triumph of India.

HS Prannoy had some outrageous returns and smashes which Lakshya had no answer. We hope this is just a small blip in his form and he will return strongly.

In another pleasant tiding, Dhruv and Arjun defeated higher-ranked Matsui & Takeuchi 27-25, 18-21, 21-19 in a match which went on for 83 minutes.

In the evening, Kidambi Srikanth faced another upset when fairly low-ranked Brice Leverdez defeated him in straight sets with a scoreline of 23-21, 21-10. Srikanth started well in the first half and was leading the tie 19-14 at one time but then Leverdez staged a comeback to win the game. 2nd game was very loose for Srikanth as he made too many errors.

After PV Sindhu and Sai Praneeth lost on Day 1, Prannoy remains the best bet for India for the podium finishes.