Lakshya, Mithun, Rahul enter pre-quarters at SaarLorLux Open

Saarbrucken (Germany) : Rising Indian shuttler Lakshya Sen staved off a stiff challenge from Finland's Eetu Heino, progressing to the men's singles pre-quarterfinals at the SaarLorLux Open Super Tour 100 here.

The eighth seeded Indian, who had defeated Heino on way to his title win at Belgian international in September, overcame the Finnish shuttler 21-18 18-21 22-20 in a 56-minute second round match on Wednesday night.

Lakshya, who had won his maiden BWF World Tour title at the Dutch Open early this month, will face Germany's Lars Schaenzler next. The 18-year-old from Uttarakhand had received a bye in the opening round.

Mithun Manjunath and BM Rahul Bharadwaj also moved to the pre-quarterfinals with straight game wins. Mithun beat Malaysia's Chong Yee Han 21-15 21-14 to set up a meeting with England's fifth seed Toby Penty While Rahul defeated Germany's Kai Schaefer 21-13 21-15 and will next face Ireland's Nhat Nguyen.

Kiran George who had earlier reached the pre-quarterfinals will face Netherlands' Joran Kweekel on Thursday. Fifth seeded women's doubles pair of Pooja Dandu and Sanjana Santosh, who got a bye in the first round, will square off against Denmark pair of Julie Finne-Ipsen and Mai Surrow for a place in the quarters.

Men's doubles pairing of Vaibhaav and Prakash Raj will meet fourth seeds Scotland pair of Alexander Dunn and Adam Hall.