Lakshya Sen bowed out of the Denmark Open Super 750 event on Thursday following a 21-15, 7-21, 17-21 loss to local player Hans-Kristian Solberg Vittinghus in 55 minutes. With Lakshya’s exit, Kidambi Srikanth remains the only Indian in fray going into quarter-finals day on Friday.
Earlier in the day, Srikanth eased past Canada’s Jason Anthony Ho-Shue 21-15, 21-14 in just 33 minutes. In the first round itself, both Shubhankar Dey and Ajay Jayaram had lost to leave only Srikanth and Lakshya in contention.
Lakshya and Vittinghus were neck-and-neck in the early exchanges of the first game. Both judged each other’s games and exchanged points before Vittinghus took a slender 11-10 lead into the break. Vittinghus led out a roar when he won that point.
However after the break, it was all Lakshya. The Indian took complete control of the proceedings and did not allow Vittinghus any time during the rallies. With loss of time and a lot of movement, Vittinghus was unable to muster much response.
The second game, however, was a terrible one from the Indian. After the first game win, Lakshya completely lost concentration and gave away cheap points. He was unable to control his shots from the other end of the court and let Vittinghus run away with the game.
Lakshya got his first point of the second game after Vittinghus got eight an could manage just seven points in the whole game.
The third game was more even. Vittinghus was trying to make Lakshya run all across the court to bring up points while the Indian relied mostly on his defence and a mix of his net play and backcourt shots.
Vittinghus had the 11-9 lead at the break and even after that, Lakshya just seemed edgy and not the assured guy there was in the first game. The second half of the deciding game, however, saw Lakshya go on the attack and try to create points.
17-15 up, Vittinghus hit the end trying to go for a smash and allowed Lakshya a closer look. A long rally ensued at the end of which Vittinghus played a smart deceptive drop to catch Lakshya and go up 18-16.
Lakshya then put the shuttle long to increase the deficit to three points. Lakshya was then able to bring up one point before he threw wide another shuttle to give three match points to the Danish, much to the delight of the little crowd.
The match ended with Lakshya playing the service return into the net.
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