All England Badminton Championships Day 2: Sindhu moves into the quarterfinals, Lakshya Sen loses in the 2nd round

It was a mixed bag day for Indian shuttlers as PV Sindhu made into the quarterfinals while the young Indian shuttler Lakshya Sen lost out to Denmark Victor Axselen in two straight games at 17-21, 18-21 in the 2^nd round of the prestigious All England Badminton Championships played at Arena, Birmingham on Thursday.

It was a hard-fought match between Lakshya and the experienced Danish player. Victor engaged Sen in long rallies, but the Indian stayed well enough to stayed which put the opponents under pressure. The young Indian mixed defence with aggression as he emerged right on a long 50 plus rallies. Axselen played with aggression and put enough pressure on young Sen. Every time, the Danish player looked to dominate, the Indian came back strongly to come back into the match. Eventually, Victor won the first game easily at 21-17.

Axselen started the 2nd game on an aggressive note-taking a 6-2 lead in the early stages. Lakshya showed great fighting spirit to come back into the game and led on a couple of occasions. From 15-15, Sen committed unforced errors hitting the shuttle wide thrice. Sen again showed fighting spirit to reduce the margin till 18-19,  but Axselen experience came to fore as a long rally helped the Dane player to win it easily.  Sen had defeated higher-ranked Lee Chik Yu of Hong Kong in three sets during the first-round match yesterday.

The World Championship PV Sindhu defeated Sung Ji Hyun of South Korea in two straight sets to move into the quarterfinals by 21-19, 21-15. It was a dominating performance by the Indian who looked in complete control right from word go. In the first game, Sindhu had an early 8-5 and maintained the lead at 11-7 at the interval. After the interval, Sung fought back strongly to reduce the gap and fought till 19-19. The Indian showed great fighting spirit to win the first game at 21-19.

In the second game, Sindhu showed her dominating display with great smashes and drop shots not allowing Sung to enter the game. At the interval, the Indian had a dominating lead. After the interval, the Korean tried her best, but Sindhu was in complete control to win the 2^nd set at 21-15 to move into quarterfinals. In the first round, she defeated Zhang Biewen of USA easily.

Sindhu had won 4 successive points in a row as compared to 3 by Sung Ji Hyun. The match went for 49 minutes. The World Championship Sindhu will take on Nozomi Okuhara of Japan tomorrow.