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What's the story?
18-year-old Lakshya Sen failed to make it to the main draw of the ongoing Malaysia Masters 2020 as the rising Indian badminton star lost to Hans-Kristian Solberg Vittinghus in the qualifying event.
The background
A host of Indian shuttlers are taking part in the Malaysia Masters happening in Kuala Lumpur. Parupalli Kashyap, HS Prannoy, Sameer Verma, Sai Praneeth, Kidambi Srikanth are the five Indian shuttlers already through to the main draw of the men's singles by virtue of their rankings.
Lakshya Sen and Subhankar Dey had a chance to make the main draw after winning in their respective qualifiers but they failed to do so.
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The heart of the matter
The unseeded Lakshya faced Hans-Kristian Solberg Vittinghus of Denmark in his qualifier match. He started off well and won the first set comfortably but eventually went down fighting by losing the subsequent two sets. The final scorecard read 21-11, 18-21, 14-21 in favour of the Dane after a gruelling 49-minute encounter.
Subhankar Dey also failed to qualify for the main draw as he lost 15-21, 15-21 to Liew Daren of Malaysia in straight sets.
India's Pooja Dandu and Sanjana Santosh were also vying for a spot in the Women's doubles category. However, they lost 15-21, 10-21 to the Indonesian duo of Ribka Sugiarto and Siti Fadia Silva Ramadhanti. This completed the triple blow for India as far as the qualifiers were concerned.
An even bigger shock came when Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty also bowed out in the very first round of Malaysia Masters. The Indian pair lost 15-21, 21-18, 15-21 to Malaysia's Ong Yew Sin and Teo Ee Yi.
What's next?
Lakshya Sen and Subhankar Dey will be playing in the qualifiers of the Indonesia Masters 2020, another Super 500 event slated to begin on 14th January in Jakarta.
The dynamic Indian Men's doubles pair of Chirag and Satwiksairaj will also look to recover quickly from the surprise exit and focus on preparing for Indonesia Masters. A tough challenge lies ahead of them as they will face second-seeded Indonesian pair of Mohammad Ahsan and Hendra Setiawan in the Super 500 tournament.
