Lakshya marches into the All England semis

March 2025. Lakshya Sen faced former champion Li Shi Feng in the men’s singles quarter-finals of the All England Open Badminton Championships. All Indian hopes were fixated on the Almora-born. But Lakshya suffered a meltdown, losing the contest to the Chinese without much of a fight.

Fast forward exactly a year. The same tournament, the same protagonists, the same stage. Only this time, the result was different. Top Indian shuttler Lakshya exacted revenge for last year’s loss, beating the sixth seed 21-13, 21-16 in exactly one hour to march into the semi-finals of the Super 1000 tournament, ending a run of three successive losses to the reigning Asian Games champion.

Coming into the Arena Birmingham after two brilliant wins — he had ousted defending champion Shi Yu Qi of China in the opener — Lakshya played some sensational badminton to earn his eighth win in 15 meetings against a rival he has known since his junior days. In fact, Li had beaten Lakshya in the 2018 Youth Olympics final in Buenos Aires.