Lakshya Sen defeated fifth seed Christo Popov of France in straight games to enter the men’s singles pre-quarterfinals at the USD 475,000 HiLo Open Super 500 tournament in Saarbrucken, Germany on Wednesday. Popov, a left-handed batsman who has been in great form after reaching the final of his home tournament at the French Open Super 750 last week, went 2-5 down in the head-to-head in the match.

Lakshya, the 2021 World Championships bronze medalist who reached the Hong Kong Open final, defeated higher-ranked Popov 21-16 22-20 in the opening round. It has been an up-and-down season for Lakshya, who has had impressive wins and performances at times, but has also suffered consecutive first-round exits.

Story continues below this advertisement Lakshya will next face compatriot S Shankar Muthusamy Subramaniam, who defeated Jun Hao Leong of Malaysia 21-14, 18-21, 21-16 in another preliminary round match. However, Kidambi Srikanth’s journey ended as he lost to compatriot Kiran George 19-21, 11-21. George will next face Christo’s elder brother, eighth seed Toma Junior Popov of France, who defeated Harry Huang of England 21-17, 19-21, 21-19.

There were some encouraging results in the women’s singles too, with unseeded Sriyanshi Valishetty defeating third seed Line Højmark Kjaersfelt of Denmark 21-19, 21-12 in just 33 minutes. Young Rakshita Santosh Ramraj also reached the round of 16 with a 21-14, 21-16 win over Spain’s Clara Azurmendi. Sriyanshi and Rakshita will face each other in the second round in the all-India competition.

Unnati Hooda entered the second round by defeating Juliana Viannaviera of Brazil 21-4, 21-13. Story continues below this advertisement. She will next face Julie Dawal Jacobsen, who was ousted by another Indian shuttler Anmol Kharab.

In another women’s singles preliminary round match, Khrab fought bravely against eighth seed Jacobsen of Denmark before losing 24-26, 21-23. In other matches across the discipline, Anupama Upadhyay lost 19-21, 19-21 against Ukraine’s Polina Buharova and was eliminated from the Omen singles competition.

Akarshi Kashyap also bowed out after losing to Neslihan Arin of Turkey 15-21, 15-21. (With PTI inputs).