Denmark Open: Srikanth reaches second round with hard-fought win

ODENSE (DENMARK): Former World Championship runner-up Kidambi Srikanth came back from a game deficit and advanced to the second round of the Denmark Open, beating Ng Ka Long Angus of Hong Kong in three games at the Jyske Bank Arena here on Tuesday.

Srikanth fought back strongly after losing the first game to overcome his 28-year-old opponent from Hong Kong 17-21, 21-15, 21-12 in a 56-minute encounter in the men's singles section of the BWF World Tour Super 750 tournament.

Srikanth, ranked 11th in the BWF Rankings, will next take on seventh-seeded Loh Keon Yew of Singapore, the same player to whom he had lost in the final of the 2021 BWF World Championship in Huelva, Spain. The winner of that encounter will make it to the quarterfinals.

Loh Keon Yew defeated Sitthikom Thammasin of Thailand 21-13, 22-20 in 42 minutes.

Meanwhile, other leading Indian shuttlers Lakshya Sen, H.S Prannoy and Saina Nehwal will open their campaigns on Wednesday.

World No.8 Lakshya Sen is the highest-ranked Indian and will start his campaign against World No.6 and Olympic medallist Anthony Sinisuka Ginting of Indonesia in the first round.

H.S Prannoy will need to get through the challenge of Zhao Jun Peng of China to move to the second round. Prannoy and Lakshya Sen will face off in the second round if they win their respective opening-round encounters.

Saina Nehwal, the lone Indian representative in the women's singles, takes on World No.30 Zhang Yi Man of China.

The Commonwealth Games men's doubles gold medallist pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty too will start their campaign on Wednesday when they face Kang Min Hyuk and Seo Seung Jae of South Korea in the first round.