India, Aug. 18 -- Before Lakshya Sen took the court against Collins Valentine Filimon of Austria in his first-round match at the BWF World Championships here on Tuesday, some of the big names of world badminton had found the court conditions tricky. The talk centered on how quickly one could adapt to the wobbling shuttle at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium here.

In the morning, fifth seed Christo Popov lost to Kenta Nishimoto, while former champion Nozomi Okuhara and Chinese fourth seed Chen Yufei had to overcome first-game deficits against unfancied opponents to advance to the next round.

The slow conditions, with sideways drift in the big arena, challenged every shuttler. Those quick to grip the airflow and perfect their stroke timing...