All England Open Badminton Championships 2022: Lakshya Sen storms into final
Lakshya Sen defeated the defending champion Lee Zii Jia of Malaysia in three games. He will face world No. 1 Viktor Axelsen in final on Sunday.
Lakshya Sen created history by becoming the first Indian in 21 years to storm into the final of the All England Open Badminton Championships 2022 men’s singles event in Birmingham on Saturday.
Lakshya Sen, ranked world No. 11, defeated world No. 7 Lee Zii Jia of Malaysia 21-13, 12-21, 21-19 in one hour and 16 minutes.
Lakshya Sen began defensively against reigning champion Lee Zii Jia but changed gears after early exchanges to take an 11-7 lead at the break.
Lee Zii Jia narrowed the deficit to 13-11. However, Lakshya Sen won six straight points and took the crucial 1-0 lead in the match.
In the second game, Lee Zii Jia charged back with a flurry of smashes and forced the game into the decider.
Both players took a defensive approach in the third game. With Lee Zii Jia leading 18-16, Lakshya Sen went all-out to snatch the game and match by taking five of the next six points.
With this win, Lakshya Sen will be the first Indian since Pullela Gopichand’s famous victory in 2001 to contest in the final of the prestigious BWF Super 1000 event.
Prakash Padukone in 1980 and 1981 was the only other player from the country to have made the All England Open finals previously.
This is also not the first time Lakshya Sen has accounted for a higher-ranked player this year. After winning bronze at the world championships in December, Lakshya Sen started the 2022 season by lifting his maiden BWF Super 500 title with a win over Loh Kean Yew in the India Open final in January.
After a brief break, Lakshya Sen entered the German Open final by defeating Tokyo Olympics champion Viktor Axelsen. Lakshya Sen also defeated world No. 3 Anders Antonsen in his second-round match at the All England Open. In the final on Sunday, Lakshya Sen will once again face the world No.1 Viktor Axelsen from Denmark.
Later in the day, the women’s double pair of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand, daughter of Pullela Gopichand, lost 21-17, 21-16 to the Chinese duo of Yu Zheng and Xian Zhang.
The Indian pair had an impressive run at the All England Open, which included upstaging world No. 2 Lee Sohee and Shin Seungchan of South Korea in the quarter-finals.