India Open 2021: Lakshya Sen becomes first Indian to win title in debut tournament itself
badminton
By-Antriksh
New Delhi:
Lakshya Sen has delivered a history-making performance. He became the first Indian to win the Indian Open men’s singles title on his debut in the tournament as he defeated defending world champion Loh Keen Yew 24-22, 21-17 in a thrilling final in New Delhi on Sunday. Lakshya defeated the Singapore player in a match that lasted 54 minutes. He is the same player who won the World Championship title in a surprising way by defeating Kidambi Srikanth in December.
This is Lakshya’s first Super 500 title on the BWF tour. He had earlier won a bronze medal at the 2021 World Championships after losing to Srikanth in the semi-finals.
After Lakshya took a 16-10 lead in the first game, Loh managed to fight back and even leveled at 19-19. Lakshya won 24-22 but earlier the pair had also exchanged match points.
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The second game was closely contested, but Lakshya won two consecutive points after leading 19–17 to win the match and the championship.
Lakshya was the second Indian representative on the final day of the tournament as Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty won the men’s doubles title on Sunday.
In a thrilling final game, Satwik and Chirag saved five game points in the second game before finally winning the match.
The pair had earlier defeated French pair of Fabian Delereau and William Villager 21-10, 21-18 in the semi-finals on Saturday.
The Indian Open competition came into the limelight due to the impact of Kovid as many India players were immediately shown the way out of the competition after getting corona.
Story first published: Sunday, January 16, 2022, 19:26 [IST]
