Indian badminton player Lakshya Sen was on the brink of the country’s as well as the entire region’s sporting history when he took on world No. 1 and reigning Olympic champion Viktor Axelsen. That was in the final of the All England Open Badminton Championships 2022 last evening at 9.30 p.m. Sri Lanka time.
Only two other Indian shuttlers, Prakash Padukone in 1980 and Pullela Gopichand in 2001, had won the title before.
The 20-year-old teen sensation, Sen, registered a win over Malaysia’s Lee Zii Jia in the All England Open semi-finals on Saturday (19) by 21-13, 12-21, 21-19 in a match that lasted one hour and 16 minutes in Birmingham.
Lakshya’s opponent in the final, Axelsen, got the better of Chou Tien Chen of China 21-13, 21-15 in the other semis.
This will be the second time in as many months that both these fierce rivals will be up against each other. Last month Lakshya stunned the Dane in the German Open 2022 semi-finals.
Ever since his bronze-medal finish at the Badminton World Federation (BWF) World Championships, Sen had grown up in strides. He won the Indian Open 2022 at home before finishing runners-up at the German Open 2022.
Sen wasn’t even born when Pullela Gopichand won the All England Open final in 2001.
To sum up his heroics so far in the tournament, Sen started with a comfortable win over compatriot Sourabh Verma before upsetting third-seed Anders Antonsen in the next round. Sen got a walk-over against Chinese Lu Guang Zu in the quarter-finals.
In the semis last Saturday (19) against Zii Jia, the Indian won the first game 21-13 despite his opponent fighting tooth and nail to stay in the game. The Malaysian dictated terms in the second game before Lakshya bounced back in the third to seal the deal.
Ranked 11th in the world, Sen is 1-4 behind world No.1 Axelsen. However, Sen’s recent win over the Dane last month in the German Open 2022 was to serve as a big boost for the Indian yesterday.
Sen first met Axelsen at the 2020 All England Open Badminton Championships before the duo came across each other thrice in 2021. Sen lost all.
Sen on verge of becoming regional badminton icon
20 Mar 2022
Sen on verge of becoming regional badminton icon
20 Mar 2022
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