Lakshya Sen beat a tough opponent, Belgium’s Julien Carragi, 21-19, 21-14 in a men’s singles Group L match at the La Chapelle badminton arena of the Olympics here on Monday.
Lakshya will take on accomplished Indonesian player Jonatan Christie in his last group outing, which will be a virtual pre-quarterfinal match, on Wednesday.
Lakshya, who had beaten Guatemala’s Kevin Cordon in his first match, saw the result being deleted after Cordon’s withdrawal due to an injury. As per Badminton World Federation’s regulations for group stage play, the results of all matches played, or yet to be played, involving Cordon in Group L are now considered deleted.
The 22-year-old Indian was pushed by Carragi, who had played a three-game contest against Christie. The Belgian, who took a three-point lead early, relied on his all-round game and employed some well-executed smashes as he maintained his advantage for most part of the first game.
With his fine movement and range of strokes, Lakshya kept chasing Carragi before catching up at 18-18 and went on to claim the game with a smash.
Carragi made some mistakes as Lakshya went ahead in the second game and was 11-4 up at the interval. The Belgian tried to catch up, but Lakshya’s brilliance helped him achieve victory.
The men’s doubles match between Satwiksairaj Rankireddy-Chirag Shetty and Germany’s Germany’s Mark Lamsfuss-Marvin Seide was also cancelled due to the withdrawal of Lamsfuss due to a knee injury. So, the result of the Indian duo’s second match will be null and void.
Meanwhile, Tanisha Crasto and Ashwini Ponnappa lost their second women’s doubles Group C match to World No.4 Nami Matsuyama and Chiharu Shida 11-21, 12-21.
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