All England Champ: Treesa-Gayatri pair in quarters; Lakshya bowes out

BIRMINGHAM: The India women’s doubles pair of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand scripted a stunning win to progress to the All England Championships quarter-finals while Lakshya Sen bowed out in the men’s singles competition here on Thursday. Treesa and Gayatri shocked former World No.1 combination of Yuki Fukushima and Sayaka Hirota (Japan) 21-14, 24-22 in a pulsating Round-of-16 contest. The World No.17 India pair, which had reached the semi-finals of the last edition, will next face the Chinese combination of Li Wen Mei and Liu Xuan Xuan. In the men’s singles second round, Lakshya could not find his touch against Anders Antonsen, going down 13-21, 15-21. It was a sweet revenge from the Dane, who had lost in straight games to the Indian last year. After crashing out in the second round, Lakshya will lose a lot of his ranking points and slip further in the BWF chart. He had lost in the first round at the German Open to slip to the 19th rank. In the men’s doubles Round-of-16 match, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty put up a gallant fight, but lost 21-10, 17-21, 19-21 to China’s World No.10 combine Liang Wei Keng and Wang Chang.