Japan Open 2023 Quarter-Finals Highlights: Lakshya Sen reaches semis, HS Prannoy, Satwik-Chirag make exit

Hello and welcome to the Khel Now's live blog for the Japan Open 2023 Quarter-Finals! Stay tuned for live updates as players fight for a place in semis.

India's Schedule for today

Men’s Singles Quarter-Finals

HS Prannoy vs Viktor Axelsen

Lakshya Sen vs Koki Watanabe

Men’s Doubles Quarter-Finals

Satwiksairaj Rankireddy/Chirag Shetty vs Lee Yang/Wang Chi-Lin

Japan Open 2023 Pre-Quarterfinals report

India’s top ranked shuttler, HS Prannoy alongside Commonwealth Games 2022 champion Lakshya Sen made it through to the quarter-finals of Japan Open 2023. Asian champions Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty also progressed with an easy with over Denmark’s Jeppe Bay/Lasse Molhede (21-17, 21-11).

Lakshya Sen started the day on a bright note by taking on Japan’s Kanta Tsuneyama. The Indian won the opening game with ease but faced a stiff challenge in the second although eventually he registered a comfortable victory (21-14, 21-16).

Indian doubles duo, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty too had an easy outing over Denmark’s young pair, registering a straight games win. The pair’s unbeaten streak is now extended to 12 matches and in the quarters they will up against reigning Olympics champions Lee Yang/Wang Chi-Lin.

Later in the day, in the all-India round of 16 clash, HS Prannoy smashed a comfortable three games victory over compatriot Kidambi Srikanth (18-21, 21-9, 21-9). The match looked evenly poised in the opening game with Srikanth registering quick points towards the fag end to win the game.

From there on, it was all one-man show with Prannoy totally dominating the match. In the next two games, Srikanth could muster only 18 points leading to his downfall.

In the decider, Srikanth was in touching distance at the start with a two-point deficit, but Prannoy never let Srikanth enter back and kept extending the lead to progress to the Japan Open 2023 quarter-finals.