Lakshya Sen faltered on the last hurdle of the All England Badminton Championships in Birmingham on Sunday. His 10-21, 15-21 loss to Denmark’s Viktor Axelsen means India’s 21-year-old jinx at this event continues – Pullela Gopichand was the final Indian to win the title in 2001.
AS IT HAPPENED
It was candy revenge for Axelsen, who had misplaced to his coaching accomplice Lakshya within the semifinal of the German Open final week.

Upset along with his loss, Lakshya stated, “I got here with a technique on play the ultimate. However as we speak he was stable. Within the first recreation, I made a variety of errors. Within the second recreation I did effectively however he was too good. Credit score to him. He performed very effectively.”
Axelsen was clearly delighted. “I’m very joyful, as joyful as I used to be once I received the title right here the primary time. I needed to start out by hitting laborious. I additionally assume Lakshya was a bit of drained after the powerful match yesterday.”

The Olympic champion had a transparent recreation plan for the match: have interaction the Indian in lengthy rallies and confine him to the again court docket. The Dane began on a fluent word, profitable six straight factors. Lakshya tried to interrupt the rhythm and scored two factors however the tall Dane was in no temper to relent. He went into the break with a nine-point cushion (11- 2). It was troublesome for the Indian to bridge the hole. Nonetheless, Lakshya collected eight extra factors earlier than Axelsen closed out the primary recreation.

Lakshya regarded the higher participant on the web on the day. However Axelsen hardly allowed him any web play. Lifting the shuttle excessive and hitting the strains laborious, Axelsen took the lead within the second recreation and even earlier than Lakshya might get his momentum, Axelsen was up 18-11. Although Lakshya, the youngest Indian to succeed in the ultimate, made some restoration, it was too late.
Late on Saturday, the ladies’s doubles pair of Gayatri Gopichand and Treesa Jolly bowed out within the semifinals following their 17-21, 16-21 defeat to Shu Xiang Zhang and You Zheng of China.

The Indian women have been up 11-8 within the first recreation earlier than the Chinese language discovered their rhythm and moved ahead with a five-point burst from 15-15 to seal the problem. Gayatri-Treesa have been within the contest until the fifteenth level of the second recreation.
Although they failed to succeed in the ultimate, 19-year-old Gayatri and 18-yearold Treesa, the extra aggressive of the duo, gave a very good account of themselves by turning into the primary pair to succeed in the semifinals of this prestigious occasion. That they had defeated Olympic champions within the pre-quarterfinals and World Championships silver medallists within the quarterfinals.