All England Championships: India’s championship quest continues as Jonatan Christie stops Lakshya Sen in the semifinals

Another excellent week concluded with a creditable semifinals finish for ace shuttler Lakshya Sen when he slipped to a three-game defeat against Indonesia’s Jonatan Christie at the All England Championships here today, continuing India’s search for the coveted trophy.

The 22-year-old, who placed second in the 2022 tournament, lost to world No. 9 Christie, the gold medalist from the 2018 Asian Games, 21-12, 10-21, 15-21 in a match of razor-thin margins.

Christie will now play Anthony Sinisuka Ginting, another Indonesian, in tomorrow’s championship match.

Sen said after the game, “I am pretty disappointed with the outcome, but overall, the way I played, surely, I have the level to be there and win the big tournaments.”

Sen, who advanced to the French Open Super 750 semifinals the week before, had spent the past 11 days playing nerve-wracking badminton for 491 minutes on the court. It’s possible that the demanding three-setters affected Sen, since he ran out of steam in the semifinals. “Since every match I played was lengthy, I could feel it during recuperation and the day before the match. For that specific day, they had to all win,” Sen said.

Despite not making it beyond the first round, Sen was feeling quite down after a string of first-round losses this season, including defeats in the Malaysia Super 1000 and India Open Super 750. However, the next two weeks have been unforgettable for Sen. His spot in Paris is almost certain because to his consecutive semifinal performances when the BWF rankings are released before the end of April.

Sen advanced to the semifinals after defeating Malaysia’s world No. 10 Lee Zii Jia and fourth-seeded Dane Anders Antonsen, all under the unique atmosphere of All England, the oldest badminton event in the world.

From Orleans Masters, Krishna-Pratheek

Orleans (France): Indian duo Krishna Prasad Garaga and Sai Pratheek K were eliminated from the Orleans Masters badminton event after losing in straight sets in the men’s doubles quarterfinals. The seventh-seeded Danish team of Andreas Sondergaard and Jesper Toft, ranked 46th in the BWF rankings, defeated the world No. 70 pair 17-21 16-21 in 40 minutes on Friday night. India’s Super 300 campaign came to an end as a result. The only two players from India to make it to the last eight were the duo.