Recovered Lakshya Sen raring to go at Saarbrucken Open | Badminton News – Times of India

HYDERABAD: Second seed Lakshya Sen will be keen to defend his title at the SaarLorLux Open BWF Super-100 tournament, which begins in Saarbrucken, Germany, on Tuesday.
Following the pandemic break, this is the second BWF tournament after the Denmark Open, which concluded on October 18.
Lakshya had an issue with his back after he won his first round match in Denmark Open, earlier this month. However, his coach Vimal Kumar said that the teen sensation has fully recovered and is raring to go at the SaarLorLux Open.
“After he finished with his first match he had lower back pain. Then we strapped him up. We were concerned with the injury, and he contacted doctors in Mumbai. An MRI scan ruled out any major injury,” said Vimal, adding that Lakshya has recovered from the injury.
“Now he has recovered, he is much better and did well when he played a club match on Saturday at the Hvidovre Badminton Club, the same club where Prakash (Padukone) had trained. He had also practiced in the Peter Gade academy and reached Saarbrucken on Monday,” Vimal added.
Lakshya is in the bottom-half of the draw and got a bye in the first round. He is expected to reach the quarterfinals without much difficulty, where he is likely to meet his compatriot, Subhankar Dey, who is seeded sixth.
“I am ready and looking forward to a better finish than the previous tournament. One never takes it easy, but I hope to play well and enjoy it. The field is quite competitive,” said Lakshya, who will practice for one more week at the Peter Gade academy before returning to India.
The other Indians in men’s singles are Ajay Jayaram, BM Rahul Bharadwaj, Alap Mishra, Kiran George, and Mithin Manjunath.
Though Lakshya is the defending champion, top seed Rasmus Gemke of Denmark is a strong favourite. Gemke reached the finals of Denmark Open last.
Malvika Bansod and Ira Sharma are the two Indian girls, who made it to the main draw in women’s singles. Olympic champion Carolina Marin the top seed in women’s singles.
While Malvika begins against Kristin Kuuba of Estonia, Ira plays her first match against Katerina Tomalova of the Czech Republic.