GUWAHATI: India’s star shuttler Lakshya Sen suffered a semi-final defeat against reigning Olympic champion Viktor Axelsen on Sunday at the Paris Olympics 2024.
The 22-year-old unseeded shuttler, India’s last hope to win an Olympic medal in the badminton category, lost 20-22, 14-21 to the world number two player despite securing significant leads at different stages of the match.
Lakshya opted for a defensive mode in the high-intensity clash.
He was at his very best throughout the game, but Axelsen turned out to be too good to be true for him.
Lakshya felt that he could not capitalize on his lead and Axelsen started dominating the latter half of the proceedings.
While Axelsen enjoyed a significant height and reach advantage over Sen, the Indian matched the Olympic medallist’s intensity and took an 11-9 lead midway through the first game and later made it 15-9, winning six points on a trot.
At 20-17, Sen had three match points but unforced errors, and Axelsen’s strategy to involve the Indian in long rallies saw the Dane win the game 22-20.
Sen started the second game even more brightly, taking a 7-0 lead before Axelsen got the first point on the board and launched a comeback. Sen led 11-10 midway through the game but by then he was running out of steam as Axelsen took control of the match and started unleashing quick smashes to clinch the game 21-14 and the match.
Despite the defeat, Sen continues to be in the hunt for a medal and will face Malaysia’s Lee Zii Jia in the bronze medal match on August 5 at 6 pm IST.
