World championship bronze medallist Lakshya Sen entered his maiden World Tour Super 500 summit clash on Saturday with a come-from-behind win over Malaysia’s Ng Tze Yong at the Yonex-Sunrise India Open, here.
Third seed Sen, ranked 17 in the world, will face reigning world champion Loh Kean Yew of Singapore in the summit clash on Sunday in a repeat of Dutch Open final last year.
The 20-year-old from Almora, who had joined his mentor Prakash Padukone, B Sai Praneeth and Kidambi Srikanth as a medallist at the World championships last month, notched up a 19-21, 21-16, 21-12 win over the World No.60 Yong in a thrilling semi-final clash.
“It is a good feeling to play my first Super 500 final at my home country. The first game was pretty close, I did some errors which cost me. But I kept my calm in the second and third game and managed to pull out,” Sen said after the match.
Loh, seeded fifth, was given a walkover in the other semi-finals by Canada’s Brian Yang after developing a sore throat and headache. Sen will be itching to set the record straight after losing the Dutch Open final to Loh. Overall, the duo has a 2-2 head-to-head record with Sen losing two of the last three meetings.
‘Excited about final’
“Both of us are playing well, it will be a good match tomorrow and I am really looking forward to playing him,” Sen said about his final clash.
However, there was disappointment in store in women’s singles as top seed and home favourite Sindhu lost 14-21, 21-13, 10-21 to sixth seeded Thai Supanida Katethong.
“I gave her a huge lead from the beginning. In the third game after it was 6-6, I should have taken a few points but she continued to lead. She is a good player. I played at Bali against her, her strokes are deceptive. I should have controlled the shuttles. It was just not my day and she played well. I have to work on my mistakes,” Sindhu said after the match.
Chirag-Satwik enter final
In the men’s doubles, World No.10 pair of Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy cruised to a 21-10, 21-18 win over France duo of William Villeger and Fabien Delrue to make it to the finals. Chirag and Satwik will square off against three-time world champion Mohammad Ahsan and Hendra Setiawan from Indonesia on Sunday.
Young Aakarshi Kashyap too had a golden chance but she squandered five game points in the opening game to allow Busanan Ongbamrungphan register a 26-24, 21-9 win in the other women’s singles semis.
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