Lakshya Sen struggles to get past Malaysian Chong

Sixth seed Lakshya Sen rallied superbly from a game down to put it across Malaysian shuttler Yee Han Chong in three games to enter the men's singles second round at the USD 20,000 10th Tata Open India International Challenge here today.
Sen, the Asian junior bronze medalist and a trainee at the Prakash Padukone Academy, had to struggle before getting the better of Chong 21-23 21-10 21-18 in an hour and three minutes for his second successive win over the Malaysian in five days.
The two young shuttlers had met in the final of the USD 8,000 India International Series in Hyderabad on November 26 and Sen won 21-15 17-21 21-17.

Also through to round two was top seed and former champion Sourabh Verma, but third seed Giap Chin Goh of Malaysia pulled out as he was down with malaria and had not arrived here. India's Mithun Manjunath was the player to benefit from the withdrawal.
In women's singles, sixth seed Sai Uttejitha Rao and no. 7 Reshma Karthik were knocked out by unseeded overseas rivals, M Thinaah of Malaysia and Cheung Ying Mei of Hong Kong respectively.
Fifth seed from Singapore, Chua Hui Zhen Grace, was also shown the exit door by India's Ira Sharma.

Top seed Rituparna Das and no 2 K Sri Krishna Priya, however, moved into the second round.

Results: Men's singles (1st round): Sourabh Verma (IND)[1] bt C Rohit Yadav (IND) 21-17 21-15; Sitthikom Thammasin (THA) bt Chirag Sen 21-10 21-19 (IND); Korakrit Laotrakul (THA) bt K Ajay Kumar 21-18 6-21 21-7; Bodhit Joshi (IND) bt Abhinav Manota (NZL) 22-20 21-17; Mithun Manjunath (IND) w/o Giap Chin Goh[3] (MAS); Harshit Aggarwal (IND) Munawar Mohammed 21-19 21-15 (IND); Pratul Joshi (IND)[5] bt Neeraj Vashist (IND) 21-12 21-13; Shreyansh Jaiswal (IND) bt Kiran George (IND) 21-15 21-14; Swarnaraj Bora (IND) bt Ansal Yadav (IND) 21-23 21-18 21-14; Lakshya Sen (IND)[6] bt Yee Han Chong (MAS) 21-23 21-10 21-18; Siddharth Pratap Singh (IND) bt Daniel S Farid (IND) 12-21 21-18 21-19; Siddharath Thakur (IND) bt N V S Vijetha 21-17 21-23 21-16.

Women's singles (1st round): Rituparna Das (IND) (1) bt Shikha Gautam (IND) 21-8 21-16; Vaidehi Choudhari (IND) bt Tsang Wing Chiu Avery (HKG) 21-14 21-10; Ira Sharma (IND) bt Chua Hui Zhen Grace[5] (SG) 21-13 21-12; Preethi Konadam (IND) bt Rashi Tyagi (IND) 12-21 21-17 21-14; Yin Fun Lim (MAS)[4] bt Vrushali Gummadi (IND) 21-17 21-13; Amolika Singh Sisodiya (IND) bt Shruti Mundada (IND) 20-22 21-14 23-21; Cheung Ying Mei (HKG) bt Reshma Karthik[7] (IND) 19-21 21-8 21-11; Riya Mukherjee (IND) bt Rasika Raje (IND) 21-10 13-21 21-18; Vaishnavi Reddy Jakka (IND) bt Eshita Raju K (IND) 21-9 21-11; Thinaah M (MAS) bt Sai Uttejitha Rao Chukka[6] (IND) 21-15 21-17; Bhavya Rishi (IND) bt Lalita Dahiya (IND) 21-6 21-8; Yeo Jia Min (SGP)[3] bt Shreyanshi Pardeshi (IND) 21-7 21-10; Fan Ka Yan (HKG) bt Anura Prabhudesai (IND) 21-19 19-21 21-19; Rutvika Shivani Gadde (IND)[8] bt Purva Barve (IND) 21-6 21-12; Neha Pandit (IND) bt Smit Toshniwal (IND) 21-16 21-12; Sri Krishna Priya Kudaravalli (IND)[2] bt Mugdha Agrey (IND) 15-21 21-15 21-10.