Mumbai, Nov 11 (IANS) India’s Naishaa Kaur Bhatoye has exited the qualifying stage of the BWF Japan Masters Japan 2025, losing in the first-round clash to Shaunna Li of New Zealand in straight games at the Kumamoto Prefectural Gymnasium, in Kumamoto, Japan, on Tuesday.

Naishaa, who played a young Saina Nehwal in the Olympic medallist’s Bollywood biopic titled Saina and has only appeared in two Super 100 BWF senior tournaments, went down to Shaunna Li in two games, 21-17, 21-18 in 32 minutes. She was the lone Indian player in the women’s singles section of the Badminton World Federation (BWF) Super 500 event.

Naishaa is the lone Indian entry in the women’s draw because two-time Olympic medallist PV Sindhu has already ended her season because of an injury, while Anmol Kharb, Tanya Hemanth, and Shriyanshi Valishetty have also pulled out of the competition.

The Indian fans’ attention will now shift to the men’s singles section of this event, with Lakshya Sen and H.S Pranoy leading the charge.

Paris Olympic Games semifinalist Sen will open his campaign against local star Koki Watanabe, while Prannoy will take on Malaysia’s Leong Jun Hao in the first-round match in this Badminton World Federation (BWF) World Tour Super 500 event to be played at the Kumamoto Prefectural Gymnasium.

While Lakshya will be hoping to improve his chances of securing a berth in the BWF World Tour Finals, this will be World Championship bronze medallist Prannoy’s first competitive outing since suffering an injury during his first round match at the Korea Open back in September.

It has been a difficult 2025 season for the 33-year-old Prannoy, as he has not advanced past the second round in any of his 14 appearances on the BWF World Tour in 2025, suffering eight first-round exits along the way.

Sen, who sat out last week’s Korea Masters, will also hope for a good showing at the Kumamoto Prefectural Gymnasium over the course of the week to help his bid to qualify for the season-ending World Tour Finals.

Placed 13th in the Race to Finals rankings, Sen is the only Indian singles player with a realistic chance of qualifying for the season-ending tournament, which will have the top eight players and doubles teams fighting for honours every year.

A good run at the Japan Masters will help Sen with valuable ranking points to climb up the rankings and get into contention for a place in the season-ender.

Sen has been enduring a mixed season so far with a handful of early exits punctuated by a few quarterfinal and semifinal appearances. His deepest run was at the Hong Kong Open, where he finished runner-up.

Ayush Shetty, who is the only Indian to win a BWF title this year courtesy of his US Open triumph, is also in the men’s singles draw in Japan along with Kiran George and Tharun Mannepalli.

–IANS

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