French Open: Lakshya Sen stuns Li Shi Feng, Satwik/Chirag into quarters

Lakshya Sen and star Indian doubles players Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty cruised into the quarterfinals of the French Open Super 750 badminton tournament on Thursday late night.

Satwik/Chirag registered a straight-game victory against the Malaysian pair of Man Wei Chong and Kai Woo Tee and Lakshya Sen stunned third-seed Li Shi Feng in three games.

Satwik and Chirag, who have been on a dream run with successive runner-up finishes in the 2023 China Open, Malaysia Open Super 1000, and India Open Super 750 this season to emerge as the world No. 1 doubles pair, defeated the Malaysian duo 21-13, 21-12 in a round-of-16 clash on Thursday night.

The Indians' domination was such that the match ended in just 32 minutes.

They will take on the Thai pair of Jomkoh Supak and Kedren Kittinupong for a place in the semifinal later on Friday.

Later in the night, Lakshya Sen came up with a brilliant comeback victory to stun third-seed Li Shi Feng of China. Lakshya defeated Feng 16-21, 21-15, 21-13 in a marathon match that went up to 81 minutes.

The first game started with both shuttlers going toe-to-toe but Feng accelerated at 16-16 and went on to win the game 21-16.

Lakshya came back strong in the second game as he started with a 3-0 lead and maintained it throughout the game to win 21-15 and force a decider.

In the decider, Lakshya reigned supreme with some brilliant play on the net and placements as he won the game 21-13. He will face Loh Kean Yew of Singapore in the quarter-final.

Meanwhile, PV Sindhu, playing her first BWF tour event since returning from a knee injury, will take on second seed Chen Yu Fei of China in the women's quarterfinal.

Sindhu, a two-time Olympic medallist, had battled her way from an opening-game reversal to outgun world No. 10 Zhang 13-21, 21-10, 21-14 to enter her first quarterfinal of the season.

In another Thursday night match, the women's doubles pair of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand also progressed to the quarterfinals, shocking the seventh-seeded Japanese duo of Yuki Fukushima and Sayaka Hirota 21-18, 21-13.

They will face top seeds Qing Chen Chen and Yi Fan Jia of China in the next round.