US Open: Lakshya Sen reaches semi-finals, Sindhu loses

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Council Bluffs (USA). Indian badminton player Lakshya Sen reached the men’s singles semi-finals of the US Open 2023 but two-time Olympic medalist PV Sindhu lost her women’s singles match and crashed out of the tournament.

Lakshya beat compatriot S Shankar Muthusamy Subramanian 21-10, 21-17 in the quarterfinals on Friday night.

2022 Commonwealth Games champion Sen dominated S Shankar, taking an early 7-1 lead and held the momentum to win the first game. S Shankar fought hard in the second game but it was not enough to take the match to the third game and eventually Lakshya won the match in 38 minutes.

The 21-year-old Sen, currently ranked No.12 in the badminton rankings, will take on defending All England champion and world No. 7 Li Shi Feng of China for a place in the final.

Interestingly, both the shuttlers had clashed in the final of the Canada Open last week, where Lakshya emerged victorious. In head-to-head encounters, the Indian has a 5-3 record against his Chinese opponent.

Sindhu, on the other hand, lost 20-22, 13-21 to China’s Gao Fang Jie in the quarterfinals.

Sindhu, who is currently ranked 12th in the world badminton rankings, was trailing Gao Fang Jie for most of the first game.

Despite the dominance of the Chinese shuttler, the Indian shuttler kept on attacking and leveled the scores at 20-all. However, Sindhu’s attempt failed as Gao Fang Jie won the last two points to take the lead in the match.

The start of the second game was closely fought and the lead was exchanged several times. With an equal score of nine points, Gao Fang Jie opened up a solid lead by winning five points in a row. The Chinese shuttler took tight control of the game and sealed the match in 49 minutes.

It was Sindhu’s fourth loss to Gao Fang Jie in five head-to-head encounters.(IANS)

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