Saarbrucken (Germany): Young Indian shuttler Lakshya Sen stormed into the second round of the HYLO Open Super 500 tournament with a straight game win over Thomas Rouxel of France here on Tuesday.
Lakshya took 36 minutes to get the better of Rouxel 21-17, 21-14.
However, a tough second round awaits the Indian as he faces the winner of the match between fourth seed Tzu Wei Wang of Chinese Taipei and Sweden's Felix Burestedt.
The other Indian in men's singles, Ajay Jayaram, however, lost his first round match to fifth seed Rasmus Gemke of Denmark 14-21, 21-19, 16-21. The match lasted one hour and five minutes.
World No. 22 Lakshya had a decent outing at the Denmark Open and French Open with second round and quarterfinal finishes respectively.
The 20-year-old from Almora was forced to pull out of the event last year after his father and coach D K Sen had tested positive for COVID-19.
The Indian mixed doubles pair of B Sumeeth Reddy and Ashwini Ponnappa crashed out in the opening round of the tournament, which was earlier known as SaarLorLux Open.
Sumeeth and Ashwini suffered straight game defeat against Denmark's Niclas Nohr and Amalie Magelund. The Indians were no match for their rivals, losing the tie 12-21, 13-21 in just 25 minutes.
It was curtains for Sri Krishna Priya Kudaravalli in the women's singles, losing 18-21, 14-21 to Maria Ulitina of Ukraine.
