All England Open: Sen in quarters, Prannoy loses to Momota

Birmingham, March 18 : Indias Lakshya Sen progressed to the mens singles quarter-finals of the prestigious All England Open badminton tournament on Thursday.

Sen beat Frances Thomas Rouxel 21-18, 21-17.

Sen will now face either Irelands Nhat Nguyen, who beat Kidambi Srikanth on Wednesday, or Netherlands Mark Caljouw.His result has been the high point for Indians thus far on Day 2 of the Super 1000 tournament with H.S.Prannoy being knocked out in mens singles and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Ashwini Ponnappa losing their mixed doubles match.Prannoy lost 15-21, 14-21 loss to Japanese world No.1 Kento Momota in 48 minutes.This is Prannoys eighth consecutive defeat to Momota, who is making his return to international badminton after over a year after a car crash in January last year led to him missing the rest of the 2020 season.

Meanwhile, Rankireddy and Ponnappa lost 21-19, 21-9 to Japans Yuki Kaneko and Misaki Matsumoto in 35 minutes.Rankireddy will be in action later in the day as he teams up with Chirag Shetty in the mens doubles against Kim Astrup and Anders Rasmussen of Denmark.Reigning world champion P.V.Sindhu later takes on Line Christophersen in the womens singles while Sameer Verma faces Denmarks third seed Anders Antonsen.