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Paris Olympics 2024 Badminton, Day 7 Highlights: Lakshya Sen becomes first Indian man to reach semifinals

Published at :August 3, 2024 at 2:05 AM
Modified at :August 3, 2024 at 2:05 AM
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Lakshya Sen will be in action on Day 7 of Paris Olympics 2024.

11:40 AM: Hello everyone and welcome to Khel Now’s LIVE COVERAGE of Paris Olympics 2024 Badminton day 7 live updates. The action is about to start! Please wait for 30 seconds for the Live blog to load.

Lakshya Sen was the lone bright star for India on Thursday (August 1) at Paris Olympics 2024 as three Indian shuttlers around him, including HS Prannoy who faced him, bowed out before the semi-final stage. Prannoy and PV Sindhu were knocked out from the round of 16, while medal favourites in men’s doubles Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty lost in the quarterfinals against the reigning Olympic bronze medallists from Malaysia.

Sen will face World No. #11 and 34-year-old Chou Tien Chen in the quarterfinals. Should he advance, Sen, 22, could face current World No. #1 and reigning Olympic champion in the semis.

He defeated compatriot Prannoy (21-12, 21-6) in the round of 16 on Thursday to book a spot in the quarterfinals in his maiden Olympics. Lakshya, who defeated the third seed Jonatan Christie on Wednesday, looked quite comfortable in the match.

Lakshya Sen started the match aggressively and soon took a 5-1 lead. Prannoy, who recently recovered from Chickengunia found it difficult as Lakshya cruised ahead to take a five-point lead at the mid-game interval. Lakshya wrapped the opening game 21-12 in no time and was looking at a dominant win over the veteran and compatriot Prannoy.

In the second game, Prannoy was offered no match to Lakshya’s pace and just gave up the match which was visible in his body language. Lakshya scored six consecutive points and led 14-3. He then soon wrapped the second game 21-6 to reach the quarterfinals in his maiden Olympics.

After the match, both Prannoy and Lakshya hugged each other. Lakshya will face Chou Tien Chen next in the quarterfinals.

Also Read: Badminton at Paris Olympics 2024: Updated schedule, fixtures, squad, results, live streaming details

On the contrary, India’s gold medal chances in badminton suffered a big blow as Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty lost to former World Champions Aron Chia and Soh Woo Yik (21-13, 14-21, 16-21). The Indians started the match a little slow and were just one-point ahead at the mid-game interval.

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They then took five consecutive points to increase the lead to 15-10. An attacking display by both Chirag and Satwik saw the duo taking the opening game quite convincingly.

The Indian pair started the second game on a positive note with brilliant smashes and took four consecutive points. However, after this, they started making errors and became nervous. Chirag made several service errors, and the Malaysians utilised this opportunity and took a slender one-point lead at the interval.

After the interval, the Indians couldn’t keep themselves calm as they made many mistakes and Chia/Soh took the second game 21-14 to force the decider.

The third game was quite fierce. Satwik-Chirag was leading by two points at the interval and soon went 14-11 up. However, the Malaysians didn’t give up and levelled at 16-16. From there they took the next four points to wrap up the match and reached their second consecutive Olympic semifinals.

PV Sindhu also lost her round of 16 match against He Bing Jiao of China (19-21, 14-21). This loss also means that Sindhu’s dream of becoming the only women’s single player to win three Olympic medals will be over. Sindhu started things slowly and He Bing Jiao marched ahead with a six-point lead. Sindhu didn’t give up and slowly started closing the gap and, in the interval, Sindhu trailed by 3 points (8-11).

Sindhu then equalised at 14-14. He Bing Jiao then quickly took the next three points thanks to Sindhu’s errors. However, Sindhu was still fighting and made it 19-19. The penultimate rally of the match saw the shuttle land in and Sindhu lost the point making it the game point opportunity for He Bing Jiao and she converted in her first chance.

Sindhu lost confidence in the second game and was no match to He Bing Jiao’s attack and speed. He Bing Jiao easily took the second game and will face her compatriot Chen Yu Fei in the quarterfinals.

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