Lakshya, Sugiarto bag 3rd consecutive win

The 2018 Junior Asian Championships gold medallist Lakshya, who made a fantastic transition to the senior circuit by winning five titles last year, brought all his confidence against Bengaluru’s Brice Leverdez. Oozing maturity with every shot, the 18-year-old blowed away the 38th ranked Frenchman 15-5, 15-4.

Sai Praneeth and Sugiarto played twice last year on the BWF World Tour with both matches ending in favour of the Indian. When the match PBL began, it was, however, Sugiarto who made the better start of the two. The Chennai ace managed to dig deep and grind out a tightly-contested first game 15-13.

The 2019 World Championships bronze medallist Sai Praneeth soared to a 10-7 lead in the second game and wrapped it up 15-10. The comeback helped the Raptors ace to free up and he continued the momentum to lead 3-0 in the decider. With the two locked at 5-5 in the third game, the Indonesian started getting better and better.

Sugiarto’s stubborn defence and refusal to break down wore out Sai Praneeth, who conceded the match 13-15, 15-10, 11-15. Earlier in the day, Olympic silver medallist Chan Peng Soon and two-time World Championships medallist Eom Hye Won combined for a brilliant opening to the tie for the defending champion. They absolutely did not allow the Chennai pair of Dhruv Kapila and Jessica Pugh to settle into the match at all and raced away to a 15-7, 15-8 Trump win.