March-16, Indian star Shuttler Lakshya Sen storms into the All-England Open semifinals from the verge of being eliminated by trailing 20-22, 14-16.
Against former champion Li Zhijia, Sen showed nerves of steel and ultimately cruised to a thrilling victory, advancing to the men’s singles semi-finals of the Super 1000 tournament in Birmingham late Friday.
The world No. 18 won 20-22, 21-16, and 21-19 in the quarterfinals of the marathon, which lasted 1 hour and 11 minutes, improving his record against the world No. 10 to 4 wins and 1 loss.
Sen was runner-up at Arena Birmingham two years ago, but has endured a difficult period in recent months, suffering seven first-round exits on the BWF World Tour. He was eliminated in the second round of the eighth match.
But,he came back strong last week. The reigning Commonwealth Games champion made a good comeback to reach the semi-finals of the $850,000 French Open in Paris. After defeating world No. 19 Kanta Tsuneyama (Japan) in last week’s opening round, he defeated 2023 All England Champion Li Shifeng (China) and former world champion Lo Qingyu (Singapore). Despite losing in the semi-finals to reigning world champion Kuvravut Vitidsaan of Thailand, the 22-year-old from Almora continued his momentum in Birmingham, reaching the final four stage for the second week in a row.