Lakshya Sen aims to win his maiden Super 300 crown

India’s new badminton sensation, Lakshya Sen would be the centre of attraction at the main draw of the Syed Modi International Badminton Tournament, starting Wednesday, at the UP Badminton Academy at Lucknow.

Fresh from his win at the Scottish Open on Sunday night at Glasgow, the 18-year-old Lakshya will look to grab his maiden Super 300 crown this week following his title triumphs at two Super 100 events -- Dutch and SaarLorLux Open -- this year.

The Indian, who has been in Denmark for a two and half month training-cum-competition stint, claimed title wins at the Belgian International and Dutch and SaarLorLux Open. The world no 40 Lakshya will take on France’s Thomas Rouxel in his first round match on Wednesday afternoon.

Before Lakshya could take the court for his first round encounter on Wednesday, third seeded Kidambi Srikanth, who is struggling with his form, will take on Russian Vladimir Malkov. This would be followed by another first round match between former champion Parupalli Kashyap and Lucas Corvee of France.

It was a sigh of relief for the organizers on Wednesday evening when Olympic gold medallist Carolina Marin of Spain had a good training session here. The three-time world champion Marin, who after recovering from an injury had a successful comeback at the China Open this September, would be facing Bulgarian Linda Zetchiri.

Certainly, Marin’s presence in the event makes a lot of difference to the fans after the top Indian shuttlers i.e world champion PV Sindhu and London Olympic bronze medallist Saina Nehwal skipped the event for different reasons.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday Indian shuttlers Tanvi Lad and Rituparna Das qualified for the women’s singles main draw, notching up contrasting wins. While Tanvi struggled a bit before knocking out Prashi Joshi 19-21, 21-18, 21-8 in the qualifiers, Rituparna brushed aside Shikha Gautam 21-10, 21-12 in straight games.

Tanvi will face Russia’s Natalia Perminova in the opening round, while Rituparna will be up against Yip Pui Yin of Hong Kong. Other women Indian shuttlers to progress to the main draw of the women’s singles event were young Ashmita Chaliha and Shruti Mundada. Ashmita defeated Aakarshi Kashyap 21-13, 21-18, while Shruti beat Ritika Thaker 21-19 21-13.

Indian shuttlers like Rahul Yadav Chittaboina, Alap Mishra, Ansal Yadav and Chinese Taipei’s Huang Ping-Hsien also made it to the main draw through the qualifying in the men’s category.