In-form Lakshya Sen stayed on course for a maiden Olympic medal but the biggest heartbreak of the day came with PV Sindhu’s exit.
On a day when the highly-rated men’s doubles duo of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty also got knocked out of the Paris Games, Lakshya brought some cheers back to the Indian camp with a comfortable 21-12, 21-6 win over a tired-looking HS Prannoy in an all-Indian pre-quarter final contest.
Lakshya thus became only the third male player ever from the country to reach the quarter-finals of the Olympics badminton competition. The 22-year-old from Almora, a reigning Commonwealth Games champion and a 2021 World Championships bronze-medallist, joined Parupalli Kashyap and Kidambi Srikanth, who had reached the quarter-finals in the London and Rio editions of the Olympics in 2012 and 2016 respectively.
No Indian male shuttler has ever reached the semi-final stage in the Olympics.
Currently ranked 22, Lakshya will face 12th seed Chinese Taipei’s Chou Tien Chen in the last-eight contest.
“I think having tough matches gives you confidence. I am now ready to go deep into the tournament. It will be a tricky match against Chou, I have to go and recover well and give my 100 per cent,” Lakshya said after the match.
Two-time Olympic medallist Sindhu’s pursuit of an unparalleled third medal, however, ended with a 19-21, 14-21 loss to China’s He Bing Jiao in the women’s singles pre-quarter final.
The 10th-seed from Hyderabad — silver medallist at Rio and bronze medallist in Tokyo — fought hard in patches but was mostly playing catch up against the higher-ranked Chinese.
Earlier, Lakshya was steady in his defence and mixed his attack well, while Prannoy, who played a three-game match on Wednesday evening, looked tired and didn’t show much resistance during the 39-minute contest.
Lakshya was off to a good start, leading 7-4 in the first game. He kept things under control as Prannoy seemed to struggle, played too defensively and was left to do the catch-up act.
Lakshya closed out the opening game comfortably.
The second game was a blur as Lakshya looked rock solid and quickly wrapped up the contest after leading all the way.
