Lakshya Sen shines, gives Chennai Superstarz early advantage

: Young Lakshya Sen dominated Brice Leverdez to post a 15-5, 15-4 win, thereby handing Chennai Superstarz a 3-2 points advantage after three matches in a Premier Badminton League (PBL) tie here on Friday.

Earlier, Peng Soon Chan and Eom Hye Won won the mixed doubles, a trump match for the team to give Raptors a headstart.

The duo beat Chennai's Dhruv Kapilla and Jessica Pugh 15 -7, 15-8 before Tommy Sugiarto quelled a mid-match challenge from B Sai Praneeth 15-13, 10-15, 15-11 to pull one back for the home team.

Sen got off to a quick start and never allowed the French right-hander to get a foothold.

The 2018 Junior Asian Championships gold medallist displayed exceptional temperament and anticipation skills to blow away the 38th ranked Frenchman.

Sai Praneeth and Sugiarto played twice last year on the BWF World Tour with both matches ending in favour of the Indian.

When the match PBL began, it was, however, Sugiarto who made the better start of the two.

The Chennai ace managed to dig deep and grind out a tightly-contested first game 15-13.

With chants of "Lets go Sai, Lets go Sai" reverberating in the stadium, the 2019 World Championships bronze medallist soared to a 10-7 lead in the second game and wrapped it up 15 -10.

The comeback helped the Raptors ace to free up and he continued the momentum to lead 3-0 in the decider.

With the two locked at 5-5 in the third game, the Indonesian started getting better and better.

In the end, Sugiartos defensive skills and resilience proved too much for Praneeth.