China Masters 2025: Satwik-Chirag advance to second round; Lakshya Sen exits

Indian badminton had mixed results on the second day of the China Masters Super 750 Tournament in Shenzhen, China, on Wednesday. 

The eight-seeded men's doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty advanced to the next round, whereas Lakshya Sen was defeated by Toma Junior Popov of France. 

After a runner-up finish last week, Lakshya couldn’t sustain his momentum, suffering his 9th first-round exit of 2025, losing out tamely 11-21, 10-21 in straight games.

On the other hand, Satwik and Chirag, who broke their semi-final curse last week, had another good start to the tournament, clinching a 24-22, 21-13 win over an unseeded Malaysian pair.

This was the third meeting for the Indian duo against the pair of Junaidi Arif and Roy King Yap, which also included their last week's meeting in Hong Kong.

The Indian duo maintained their undefeated record against them, advancing to the pre-quarterfinals to face Hsiang Chiu and Wang Chi-Lin from Chinese Taipei, whom they also encountered last week.

In the mixed doubles, the Indian duo of Dhruv Kapil and Tanisha Crasto had their second consecutive first-round exit, losing 19-21, 13-21 to the second-seeded Chinese pair of Feng Yanzhe and Huang Dongping.