All England Open: Srikanth stunned, Prannoy, Verma, and the rest entourage advance to Round 2

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The first round matches of the Yonex All England Open Badminton Championships began after much hiatus due to the COVID-19 scare. There were reports of players and support staff from three countries having tested positive for the virus. In the second test, they later turned negative tests. This all caused a delay of about 5 hours in the commencement of the 111th edition of the historical tournament.

World number one Kento Momota made a return after almost a year of break. He beat Parupalli Kashyap 21-13, 22-20 in 42 minutes.

Srikanth suffers shock defeat

Kidambi Srikanth, seeded number eight suffered a shock defeat at the hands of Nhat Nguyen of Ireland. He went down in one hour 21-11, 15-21, 21-12.

HS Prannoy put up a good show on day 1 as he beat Liew Daren 21-10,, 21-10 in just 30 minutes.

Lakshya Sen the emerging Indian youngster got the better of Kantaphon Wangcharoen of Thailand. In 49 minutes he emerged victorious 21-18, 21-12.

It was a breeze for Sameer Verma  as he beat Ygor Coelho of Brazil 21-11, 21-19.

Sai Praneeth struggled against Toma Popov of France to book a spot in the second round. It was almost an hour-long struggle for Praneeth to beat the youngster 21-18, 22-20.

Rasmus Gemke beat Kenta Nishimoto in a marathon two set game lasting 52 minutes with a scoreline of 21-13, 21-14.4

Defending champion Viktor Axelsen(2) had a rocky start to the All England Open. It was a one-hour 5 minute battle against Koki Watanabe of Japan for Axelsen to make it to the second round, 13-21, 21-19, 21-19.

Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty comfortable edged past the pair of Nikhar Garg and Aniruddha Mayekar 21-7, 21-10 in just 19 minutes. It was complete dominance by the Indian doubles pair. They will now meet the Danish Pair of Kim Astrup and Anders Rasmussen. The Indian pair just lost to the Danes in the semifinals of the Swiss Open.

Arjun MR and Dhruv Kapila went down to Ong Yew Sin and Teo Ee Yi of Malaysia in straight games 21-13,21-12.

Upcoming Round 2 matches

• Satwiksairaj Rankireddy/Chirag Shetty vs Kim Astrup/Anders Skaarup Rasmussen
• Kento Momota vs Prannoy HS
• Lakshya Sen vs Thomas Rouxel
• Lee Zii Jia vs Hans Vittinghus
• Sameer Verma vs Anders Antonsen
• Sai Praneeth vs Viktor Axelsen

Where to watch?

The matches start at 2:30 PM IST and will be telecast live on Star Sports 3 and Star Sports 2 HD TV channels in India and Disney+ Hotstar OTT platform.

Also Read: All England Open: Sindhu sails to Rounds 2, Saina exits with an injury