Commonwealth Games champion Lakshya Sen suffered a crushing defeat to Japan’s Kenta Nishimoto in the first round of the Japan Open Super 750 badminton tournament here on Wednesday.
The 21-year-old from Almora, bronze medalist of the 2021 World Championships, went down 21-18 14-21 13-21 to world number 21 Nishimoto in a men’s singles match that lasted one hour and six minutes.
This was his first defeat to the Japanese in two matches.
The fast-rising men’s doubles pair of MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila, after making the quarter-finals at the World Championships, jumped nine places to reach No. 26 in the world, 21 ahead of the Korean combination of Choi Sol Gyu and Kim. -19, 21-23, 15-21. Won be
Mixed doubles pair of Juhi Devangan and Venkat Gaurav Prasad lost 11-21, 10-21 to Chinese top seeds Zheng Si Wei and Huang Ya Qiang in 23 minutes.