India’s Subhankar Dey stuns Lin Dan at SaarLorLux Open

Unheralded Indian Subhankar Dey shocked multiple time World and Olympic champion Lin Dan 22-20, 21-19 to enter the quarter-finals of the SaarLorLux Open Badminton Championship on Thursday.

World No 64 Subhankar took 45 minutes to upstage the current world No 12, who has five World Championship titles and two Olympic gold medals in his kitty.

The Indian won crucial points in both games which were closely fought. Lin Dan, at 35, is at the business end of his career but was awarded top billing at the event.

Barely two weeks ago, it was Kidambi Srikanth, who beat Lin Dan at the Denmark Open.

The other notable performance on Thursday came from CWG gold medallist Parupalli Kashyap, who beat local player Alexander Roovers 21-14 21-12.

In the quarter-finals, Subhankar will be pitted against seventh seed Toby Penty of England while Kashyap will face Frenchman Toma Junior Popov.

The Indians, however, had a disappointing day in doubles with Arun George and Sanyam Shukla losing to Mark Lamsfuss and Marvin Emil Seidil 19-21 16-21.

Huang Kaixiang and Wang Zekang beat MR Arjun and Shlok Ramachandran 21-16 21-18 in another match.

(PTI)