BWF World Championships: HS Prannoy Through to Quarters With Win Over Loh Kean Yew, Lakshya Sen Bows Out

Veteran Indian shuttler HS Prannoy moved into the quarterfinal of the BWF World Championships 2023 underway in Copenhagen, Denmark on Thursday with his win over 2021 champion Loh Kean Yew of Singapore.

Prannoy picked up a three-set win over the Singapore shuttler 21-18, 15-21,21-19 to reach the last eight of the event.

Prannoy opened the fixture with a win as he rallied from down thrice to make it 8-aal, 11-all and 16-all before pushing ahead to take the lead and held onto it to eventually claim the first set.

The second game looked eerily similar to the first one with respect to the scoreline as Prannoy fought back from a deficit to level at 13 each, but the Singapore shuttler put the screws on the Indian from there on to take the second game and push the fixture into a deciding third.

Prannoy seemed to be cruising to victory in the third game as he earned a healthy difference and worked his way into a strong position before Kean Yew clawed back to draw parity at 14 all.

The lead exchanged hands a couple of times before Prannoy held his nerve to close out the third game 21-19 in his favour and move into the last eight of the event in Denmark.

However, Lakshya Sen was shown the exit door by Kunlavut Vitidsarn in a game that the Indian sensation lost to the Thai badminton player 13-21, 21-16, 14-21.

Earlier in the day Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shettysealed progress into the quarterfinal of the men’s doubles event with a 21-15 19-21 21-9 win over the Indonesian pair of  Leo Rolly Carnando and Daniel Marthin.

However, there was no such luck for the Indian women’s doubles pairing of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand went down 14-21 9-21 in 42 minutes against the top-seeded Chinese duo of Chen Qing Chen and Jia Yi Fan.

It was only the second meeting between Gayatri-Treesa and the Chinese pair with the Indians having lost to the world number one Chinese team at the German Open last year.

Chen and Jia are three-time gold medallists at the World Championships, won three BWF titles, and finished runner-up twice this season.