Calgary: Star Indian shuttlers PV Sindhu and Lakshya Sen progressed to the quarterfinals of the women’s and men’s singles competitions respectively at the Canada Open Super 500 tournament here.
While Sindhu advanced to the last eight after her opponent Natsuki Nidaira of Japan gave a her a walkover, Sen notched up a 21-15 21-11 win over Brazil’s Ygor Coelho in 31 minutes.
Sindhu will face 2022 Indonesia Masters champion Gao Fang Jie, who had played an important role in China’s win at the Asia Mixed Team Championships this year.
Sen, who is a Commonwealth Games gold medallist, takes on Belgium’s Julien Carraggi.
However, Krishna Prasad Garaga and Vishnuvardhan Goud Panjala couldn’t cross the pre-quarterfinal stage, going down 9-21 11-21 to Indonesian second seed and world number 7 Mohammad Ahsan and Hendra Setiawan.
Sen has been slowly regaining his touch after going through a lean patch early in the season.
On Thursday, Sen faced a tough battle against Coelho, who erased a 0-2 deficit with a four-point burst and then kept it tight. The duo moved neck and neck till 13-13 when Sen managed to march ahead and sealed the contest after jumping to 20-15 with a five-point burst.
In the second game, Sen hardly had any issues as he galloped to 12-2 and took giant strides to comfortably seal the match.
