Badminton
Canada Open: Lakshya Sen reaches final, PV Sindhu knocked out
Lakshya Sen continued his winning run as he stormed into the finals of Canada Open 2023, his first final of the year.
Lakshya Sen will head into the BWF World Championships having recovered some of his form from 2022 (File Photo/AP)
Ace Indian shuttler Lakshya Sen continued his resurgence and blanked fourth seed Kenta Nishimoto of Japan 21-17, 21-14 in straight games to reach the finals of Canada Open 2023 on Saturday.
Currently ranked 19 in the world, this will be the first final for Lakshya Sen in the 2023 World Tour.
Kenta Nishimoto started well and took an early lead of 4-1 in the first game before Lakshya started taking some points and closed the gap. Nishimoto was leading 11-10 at the mid-game break.
Lakshya improved his game after the break and went on to take six consecutive points to make it 16-11. Lakshya held onto his lead after and won the first game 21-17.
In the second game, both shuttlers started neck-to-neck before Lakshya took an 11-8 lead in the mid-game break.
Coming after the break, Lakshya went to rack up points and took a lead of 19-11 at one point. It was mere formalities after that as the Indian shuttler won the game 21-14 to enter his first final of the season.
In the other match of the day, PV Sindhu went down fighting against world number 1 Akane Yamaguchi in the women's singles semi-finals.
While PV Sindhu didn't play badly and used her cross-court smashes to perfection, Yamaguchi took 43 minutes to overcome the challenge of the Indian shuttler 21-14, 21-15.
This loss means Sindhu will have to wait for her first title of 2023 despite one final and two semi-final finishes.
Lakshya Sen will face world number 10 and All England Champion Li Shi Feng in the finals, who defeated Kodai Naraoka in the semis.
