LAKSHYA OFF TO WINNING START AT NATIONALS

Guwahati: Teen sensation Lakshya Sen launched the bid to claim his maiden Senior Badminton National title with a straight- game win over Delhi’s Rahul Patel and entered the men’s singles third round here Tuesday. The 17- year- old from Uttarakhand, who had clinched the Asian Junior title and a bronze medal at the World Junior Championship last year, defeated Delhi’s Rahul 21- 13, 2113 in a 28- minute match. Lakshya got a bye in the first round. Lakshya, who had entered the finals in 2017 and semifinals in the last edition, set up a third- round clash against Jammu and Kashmir’s Vipul Saini. Former two- time champion Sourabh Verma also made a rousing start to his campaign with a dominating 21- 10 21- 8 win over Jayapragasham V. S. He will play Assam’s Iman Sonowal in the second round. aharashtra’s Harsheel Dani, who had won the 2018 Ghana International, prevailed over Telangana’s Siril Varma, a former World Junior Championships silver medallist 23- 21, 21- 17 and will meet Haryana’s 17th seed Balraj Kajla. On a busy opening day of the 83rd edition of Yonex Sunrise Senior National Badminton Championships, as many as 250 matches were played on nine different courts. Five singles shuttlers from Assam made a positive start to their campaign. In the women’s singles, Megha Bora Morchana beat Nagaland’s Ekumyala 21- 9, 21- 14, while Suzen Burhagohain advanced to the second round after Goa’s Yasmin Syed retired trailing 2- 3. Among other matches, Arintap Dasgupta dumped Anay Shirpurkar 21- 8, 21- 5.