PARIS: India's Sameer Verma progressed to the second round of French Open Super 750 badminton tournament with a straight game win over Lee Dong Keun here on Tuesday. The 25-year-old from Madhya Pradesh, who had won three titles to qualify for the 2018 World Tour finals, beat the Korean 21-14 21-12 in 54 minutes in the men's singles opening round here.
This was Sameer's first win over the Korean, having lost to him twice in the past. Sameer had stunned world no 3 Anders Antonsen of Denmark at the Denmark Open second round last week before retiring in the quarterfinals due to a calf muscle injury.
His performance helped him improve to world no 21 in the latest Badminton World Federation ranking chart. In mixed doubles, Dhruv Kapil and N Sikki Reddy put up a gallant fight before losing 19-21 19-21 to fifth seeded Malaysian combination of Chan Peng Soon and Goh Liu Ying in their opening match.
Double Olympic medallist PV Sindhu, Saina Nehwal, Kidambi Srikanth, B Sai Praneeth, Lakshya Sen are among other Indians in fray.