Shi Yuqi\u2019s hopes of defending his men\u2019s singles All England Open Badminton title were dashed in the opening round, after the People\u2019s Republic of China star was bested 23-21, 19-21, 21-17 by India\u2019s Lakshya Sen on Tuesday (3 March).
\nAfter dropping the opening game in a tie-break, the world No. 1 rallied back in the second to level the dramatic Round-of-32 clash at the Utilita Arena in Birmingham.
\nBut it would be Sen that would emerge out of the decider as the winner.
\nUp 11-9 at the break, the Paris 2024 men\u2019s singles semi-finalist edged ahead 13-11 and remained composed to close out the one-hour-and-18-minute epic for his second-ever victory over the Chinese shuttler.
\nSen now advances to the Round of 16, where he will meet Ng Ka Long Angus of Hong Kong, China.
\nIn the women\u2019s draw, reigning Olympic champion An Seyoung\u2019s quest for back-to-back All England crowns got off to a winning start after she defeated Neslihan Arin of T\u00fcrkiye.
\nThe 24-year-old No. 1 seed needed just 27 minutes to secure her place in the Round of 16, pulling away early from her opponent to notch a 21-8, 21-6 victory.
\nAn, who has won her past seven consecutive tournaments in the build-up to Birmingham, is bidding to become the first Korean ever to win consecutive All England titles, following her victory over Wang Zhiyi in last year\u2019s final.
\nShe will now face Lin Hsiang-Ti of Chinese Taipei for a spot in the quarter-finals.
\nLin set up the meeting with the world No. 1 after defeating the Republic of Korea\u2019s Sim Yujin 21-16, 21-13.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Shi Yuqi\u2019s hopes of defending his men\u2019s singles All England Open Badminton title were dashed in the opening round, after the People\u2019s Republic of China star was bested 23-21, 19-21, 21-17 by India\u2019s Lakshya Sen on Tuesday (3 March). After dropping the opening game in a tie-break, the world No. 1 rallied back in the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":94543,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94527"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94527\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94544,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94527\/revisions\/94544"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}