India’s long drought at the
All England badminton championships
continued as
Lakshya Sen
lost in the semifinals of the blue riband event in Birmingham, England, on Saturday.
Sen fought hard before he lost his rhythm in the third game and suffered a 12-21, 21-10, 15-21 defeat to Jonatan Christie of Indonesia. After losing the first game, Lakshya recovered to win the second game with a big margin.
Even in the third game, he was up 3-0. But Christie clawed his way back in the contest, relying mostly on his jump smashes. He first played long rallies and after wearing out his rival, executed full-blooded smashes. When Lakshya was up 6-4, Christie engaged him in the longest rally of the match, a 63-shot exchange, and won it.
That changed the complexion of the match. Till then, Lakshya appeared to be in control but lost momentum after that. Christie led 11-8 at the break and very soon widened the gap to 15-10 before marching into the final. In the first game, Lakshya was in only till 7-9.
Thereafter, Christie increased the tempo and secured several smash winners. From 11-7, Christie powered ahead to 18-10, scoring maximum points with his smashes.
Before the second game, Lakshya’s coaches Prakash Padukone and
Vimal Kumar
were heard telling him to earn points by playing long rallies.
Following their advice, Lakshya started on a brisk note in the second game and secured an 11-3 lead even before Christie could get a feel of the new side of the court.
The Indonesian made a flurry of mistakes. He hit the shuttle wide several times and committed many unforced errors. The eight-point lead at the halfway stage proved handy for Lakshya, who widened the gap as Christie continued to make errors. It was too good to be true, though.
In an all-Indonesian final on Sunday, Christie will face Anthony Sinisuka Ginting. Fifth-seeded Ginting recovered to beat Christo Popov of France 19-21, 21-5, 21-11 in the other semifinal.
English (US) ·