Star Indian shuttlers PV Sindhu and Lakshya Sen notched up straight game wins to progress to the women's and men's singles quarterfinals of the US Open Super 300 badminton tournament in Council Bluffs.
Double Olympic medallist Sindhu, seeded third, defeated Korea's Sung Shuo Yun 21-14 21-12. Fresh from his Canada Open Super 500 title last week, Sen beat Czech Republic's Jan Louda 21-8 23-21 in 39 minutes.
Sindhu will face China's Gao Fang Jie next, while it will be an all-Indian clash in men's singles when third seed Sen takes on promising 19-year-old S Sankar Muthusamy from Chennai.
It has been an impressive run for the 2022 World Junior Championships silver medallist who registered a fighting 21-18 21-23 21-13 win over Israel's Misha Zilberman.
Sindhu didn't break much sweat against Sung, who couldn't pose any real challenge to the Indian during the match. Sindhu jumped to a 7-2 lead early on before extending it to 13-5.
Sung managed to narrow down the deficit to 11-14 but Sindhu dashed any hope of a comeback, keeping a grip on the rallies to eventually earn the bragging rights.
After the change of sides, Sung started to match up to the Indian initially as she had a slender 5-3 lead but it soon evaporated with Sindhu breaking off from 7-7 to march ahead.
At the interval, Sindhu had a 11-8 lead and she kept moving ahead as Sung crumbled. From 16-12, Sindhu reeled off the remaining points without much ado.
Sen too blazed his way to a 6-1 lead and then jumped to 17-5 in a jiffy to take it away from his opponent in the opening game. The 39-year-old Czech, however, made a remarkable comeback in the second game, making life tough for Sen.
Jan was 8-5 up and also held a 19-14 advantage, giving hope for a reversal but Sen scripted a sensational recovery with five points to claw back at 19-19. Sen then saved a game point to close out the match after some tight rallies.
