In a major disappointment for Indian contingent, HS Prannoy and Laskhya Sen crashed out of the Indian Open 2025 on Wednesday (Jan 15). On the other hand, Anupama Upadhyaya won the battle between two rising women’s singles players while Malvika Bansod and Priyanshu Rajawat put their best foot forward by putting their much higher ranked opponents to the sword but were unfortunate to end on the wrong side of the score-line in the opening round of the India Open 2025 at the KD Jadhav Indoor Hall.
Mix day for India
Malvika saved two game points in the opening game and fought back from 7-14 to 16-16 in the second against women’s singles third seed Han Yue of China before going down 20-22, 21-16, 21-11 in an hour and six minutes. Rajawat saved a match point in the second game to force a decider against the 2023 world championships silver medallist and sixth seed Kodai Naraoka but could not avoid a 21-16, 22-20, 21-13 loss in a match that lasted an hour and 22 minutes in the HSBC BWF World Tour Super 750 tournament.
Among the foreign stars, Olympic champion Viktor Axelsen fought back from a game down to beat Chi Yu Jen (Tpe) 16-21, 21-11, 21-13 in men’s singles opening round while An Se Young defeated Chiu Pin-Chian of Taipei 22-20, 21-15.
Earlier, the all-Indian clash between academy-mates Anupama and Rakshita Sree Santosh Ramraj turned out to be a battle of wits between two good friends with experience triumphing the youth.
Former National champion Anupama engaged Rakshita in long rallies, not giving her many chances to use the big smash to win 21-17, 21-18 in 43 minutes to advance to the second round.
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In the men’s singles match, Rajawat displayed delectable stroke play and employed the big jump smashes to keep pace with Naroaka. The Japanese was made to work hard for every point and the error the Indian forced the sixth seed to commit at match point in the second game after a long rally showed that he was prepared for the scrap. But once again it was experience of Naraoka that counted in the final analysis.
Asian Games and world championships bronze medallist HS Prannoy’s comeback bid was also cut short by Su Li Yang as the 32-year-old Indian went down 16-21, 21-18, 21-12 in an hour and 13 minutes.
The day ended on a disappointing note for the hosts as 2022 champion Lakshya Sen went down 21-15, 21-10 against Chinese Taipei’s Lin Chun-Yi.