An impressive week ended with a creditable semi-final finish for India shuttler Lakshya Sen after he stumbled to a three-game loss against Indonesia’s Jonatan Christie at the All England Championships here on Saturday.
In a game of fine margins, the 22-year-old, who had finished runner-up in the 2022 edition, fell marginally short as he slipped to a 21-12, 10-21, 15-21 defeat to world No. 9 Christie, the 2018 Asian Games gold medallist.
Lakshya, who reached the semi-finals of French Open Super 750 the previous week, has been on court for 491 minutes playing some nerve-wracking badminton in the last 11 days and those gruelling three-setters might have taken their toll as he ran out of steam in the semi-final.
Christie will now face fellow Indonesian Anthony Sinisuka Ginting in Sunday’s final.
Though he failed to go the distance, the last two weeks have been memorable for Lakshya, who had been looking down and out after a series of first-round exits, including losses at Malaysia Super 1000 and India Super 750 this season.
The back-to-back semi-final finishes are likely to lock his Paris Olympic Games berth when the BWF rankings are published by April end.
All England Championships, the oldest badminton tournament in the world, has its own aura and Lakshya managed to beat fourth-seeded Dane Anders Antonsen and Malaysia’s world No. 10 Lee Zii Jia en route to the semi-finals but Christie proved to be a road block which he couldn’t circumvent.
On Friday, the Indian had displayed great mental resolve on his way to a stunning win over former champion Malaysia’s Lee Zii Jia to progress to the semi-finals.
Lakshya had produced good variations while attacking and kept fighting to outlast Lee 20-22, 21-16, 21-19 in an absorbing quarter final that lasted 71 minutes on Friday.
“It was a really good match and I am happy to be on the winning side. It was all about holding the nerves. I knew he has the quality to come back and give a tough fight,” Lakshya had said after the quarter final.
“Even when I was 18-14 up, I knew if I play a little bit lose, he will grab the opportunity. For me, it was important to dictate the pace. In the end, it was about not giving him an open chance to hit and keep the shuttle down.
“It (physically) was really good,” Lakshya said.
