Birmingham, Mar 18 (IANS): India's Lakshya Sen progressed to the men's singles quarter-finals of the prestigious All England Open badminton tournament on Thursday. Sen beat France's Thomas Rouxel 21-18, 21-17.

Sen will now face either Ireland's Nhat Nguyen, who beat Kidambi Srikanth on Wednesday, or Netherland's Mark Caljouw. His result has been the high point for Indians thus far on Day 2 of the Super 1000 tournament with H.S. Prannoy being knocked out in men's singles and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Ashwini Ponnappa losing their mixed doubles match.

Prannoy lost 15-21, 14-21 loss to Japanese world No. 1 Kento Momota in 48 minutes. This is Prannoy's eighth consecutive defeat to Momota, who is making his return to international badminton after over a year after a car crash in January last year led to him missing the rest of the 2020 season.

Meanwhile, Rankireddy and Ponnappa lost 21-19, 21-9 to Japan's Yuki Kaneko and Misaki Matsumoto in 35 minutes.

Rankireddy will be in action later in the day as he teams up with Chirag Shetty in the men's doubles against Kim Astrup and Anders Rasmussen of Denmark. Reigning world champion P.V. Sindhu later takes on Line Christophersen in the women's singles while Sameer Verma faces Denmark's third seed Anders Antonsen.