Council Bluffs (US): Olympic medallist shuttler P V Sindhu defeated her American opponent of Indian origin Disha Gupta while Lakshya Sen began his men's singles campaign with a convincing win over Finland's Kalle Koljonen at the US Open Super 300 badminton tournament here on Wednesday.
In another men's singles match, S Sankar Subramanian, who had entered the main draw of the tournament after two tough qualifying matches, defeated his Irish opponent Nhat Nguyen 21-11, 21-16 in the first round.
However, B Sai Praneeth lost to 23-year-old world No. 7 Li Shi Feng of China after a gruelling match that lasted three games.
Sindhu defeated Diksha 21-15, 21-12 in just 27 minutes to enter the second round, while Lakshya beat his Finnish opponent 21-8, 21-16 in less than 30 minutes.
Sankar though was tested by his Irish opponent Nhat Nguyen before winning 21-11, 21-16 in 44 miniues, while Praneeth gave a tough fight to second seed Shi Feng before going down 16-21, 21-14, 21-19 in one hour and 14 minutes.
In another women's singles match, India's 61-ranked player Ruthvika Shivani went down to Lin Hsiang Ti of Chinese-Taipei 14-21, 11-21.
On Tuesday, former Commonwealth Games champion Parupalli Kashyap retired midway into his second qualifier after trailing 21-23, 7-11 against Koo Takahashi of Japan. He had won his first qualifier against England's Rohan Midha 21-19, 21-17.
