Indian shuttlers made a bright start with Lakshya Sen winning his men’s singles encounter and the doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty posting victory in the La Chapelle Arena in the Paris Olympics here on Saturday.
World championships bronze medallist and Commonwealth Games gold winner Lakshya beat Guatemala’s 37-year-old Kevin Cordon 21-8, 22-20 in his opening Group L match.
The contest, 42 minutes, consisted of two contrasting games with World No. Lakshya dominated the first, as he won as many as 14 points from his service and took a 13-point lead at one stage, to finish it off in just 14 minutes.
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Cordon challenged the Indian in the second game, in which two were engaged in two long rallies, comprising 31 and 28 shots. Some errors by Lakshya helped Cordon reach game point at 20-16, but the Indian, guided by Prakash Padukone and Vimal Kumar, maintained his composure to save four match points and added two more, closing the match with a smash and thwarting the Pan-American champion’s comeback bid.
The World No.3 Satwik-Chirag pair defeated the French duo of Lucas Corvee and Ronan Labar 21-17, 21-14 in a Group C match, lasting 46 minutes.
After claiming the first game comfortably, the World Championship bronze medallist pair, barring some errors, built a six-point lead before posting victory.
In the women’s doubles, Ashwini Ponnappa and Tanisha Crasto lost 18-21, 10-21 to Kim So Yeong and Kong Hee Yong representing the Republic of Korea.
Lakshya will next play Belgium’s Julie Carraggi while Satwik-Chirag will meet Germany’s Mark Lamsfuss and Marvin Seidel next. Ponnappa-Crasto will face Japanese pair Nami Matsuyama and Chiharu Shida in their next match.
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