Star shuttler Lakshya Sen failed to maintain consistency in his performance as he faced a 10-21, 16-21 defeat against the Chinese sixth seed Li Shifeng in Birmingham. Previously, the women’s duo of Treesa Jolly and Gayathri Gopichand also encountered a 14-21, 10-21 loss against the Chinese second seeds Liu Shengshu and Tan Ning.
After a rapid rise in the game of badminton, Indian shuttlers now seem to have lost momentum, facing a slump in their recent performances.
U. Vimal Kumar, the coach of Sen, has expressed displeasure over his below-par performance. Though reckoning Sen as the “mainstay” of the future, he opined that he should now take responsibility for performing well in bigger tournaments.
“Lakshya Sen is still among the top 20. But he has to find consistency and win some big tournaments, the Super 1000 and Super 750 events. He is going to be our mainstay in the coming years’‘, stated the coach.
However, the star player defeated the defending champion of the All England Open, Jonathan Christie, in his previous match at the pre-quarters. The Indonesian lost to Lakshya Sen in straight games, the scores read 21-13, 21-10.
This was Sen’s third victory over the current world no. 2, who restricted him from his maiden All England title in the semi-finals last season.
While talking about the women players, Vimal Kumar observed that they were having trouble finding a finishing stroke. He advised shuttlers like Treesa Jolly, Gayathri Gopichand, and Malvika Bansod to sharpen their skills by working on that aspect.
Earlier, the famous men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty was ruled out of this prestigious tournament. An old back injury of Chirag made a sudden comeback during their pre-quarterfinal match against China’s Hao Nan Xie and Wei Han Zeng. This forced the seventh-seeded “Sat-Chi” duo to pull out of the event.
Veteran player H.S. Prannoy and double Olympic medallist P.V. Sindhu made a first-round exit in the tournament by losing against Toma Junior Popov and Kim Ga Eun, respectively. Prannoy lost the match against the French shuttler by 19-21, 16-21. Sindhu put up a fight in the first game, but the South Korean eventually got the better of her. Eun defeated Sindhu by 19-21, 21-13, 21-13.
South Korea’s An Se Young overcame the challenges posed by China’s Wang Zhi in the finals to win the women’s singles title for the second time in this tournament. China’s Shi Yuqi claimed the men’s singles title by defeating Chinese Taipei’s Lee Chia Hao with scores of 21-17, 21-19 in straight games.
