PV Sindhu and Lakshya Sen sailed into the second round of the Hylo Open 2026 badminton tournament on Wednesday, headlining a productive day for Indian shuttlers at the Saarlandhalle.
Second seed PV Sindhu, fresh off her runners-up finish in France last week, needed just 28 minutes to brush aside the UAE’s Prakriti Bharath by a 21-10, 21-10 scoreline in her opening women’s singles match.
Men’s singles seventh seed Lakshya Sen had to work harder, recovering from a game down to beat Finland’s Joakim Oldorff 16-21, 21-9, 21-13 in just over an hour.
Kiran George, meanwhile, accounted for Malaysia’s Cheam June Wei 21-18, 21-17.
HS Prannoy, though, went down 23-21, 21-16 to sixth seed Toma Junior Popov of France after letting the opening game slip in his men’s singles opener.
Tharun Mannepalli and Sankar Subramanian lost to Chi Yu Jen of Chinese Taipei and Kalle Koljonen of Finland, respectively, to crash out of the BWF Super 500 tournament.
Ayush Shetty was also listed to compete in Germany but pulled out before the tournament started due to an injury he had sustained during last week’s French Open.
In the women’s singles, sixth seed Unnati Hooda also rallied from behind, downing Czechia’s Tereza Švábíková 17-21, 21-12, 21-11.
Isharani Baruah beat Germany’s Miranda Wilson 21-19, 21-9 in straight games, while Anmol Kharb edged Sri Lanka’s Ranithma Liyanage 21-18, 22-20.
Malvika Bansod came out on top in an all-Indian clash, bouncing back to beat Devika Sihag 18-21, 21-10, 21-14.
Ashmita Chaliha squandered a lead to lose 18-21, 21-12, 21-8 to Bulgaria’s Kaloyana Nalbantova and bowed out of the women’s singles draw.
Aakarshi Kashyap went down 21-12, 21-18 against Polina Buhrova of Ukraine.
READ MORE: https://www.olympics.com/en/news/hylo-open-2026-badminton-india-day-2-report
