Kamal Ghorui
Lakshya Sen stormed into the semifinals of the All England Championship with a 21-13, 21-16 victory over former champion Li Shi Feng in Birmingham on Friday.This is Lakshya’s third semifinal appearance at the Super 1000 event. The Indian had earlier finished runnerup in the 2022 edition.The Almora shuttler was in full flow against Li in both games.
The Chinese player, who suffered a serious ankle injury at the World Tour Finals in December, was not at his best and struggled to keep pace with the Indian.Lakshya opened up a fivepoint lead (11-5) at the break in the first game and did well to protect the cushion thereafter.After the interval, Li cut the deficit to 12-9, but Lakshya refused to buckle under pressure. He mixed powerful smashes with sharp retrievals. At 15-12, the two were involved in a 65-shot rally, which Li won. But just as momentum seemed to shift, Lakshya responded with a six-point burst to seal the first game.In the second game, Li started strongly with a 3-1 lead before Lakshya reeled off five straight points. Though the Indian had only a slender one-point advantage at the break (11-10), he dominated the second half as Li struggled to keep up.Lakshya will face the winner of the quarterfinal between Japan’s Koki Watanabe and Canada’s Victor Lai in the semifinals.From the bottom half of the draw, Chinese Taipei’s Lin Chun-Yi and Thailand’s Kunlavut Vitidsarn also advanced to the semifinals.
