BWF World Championship 2021: Kidambi Srikanth, Lakshya Sen storm into semis as PV Sindhu fails to defend her title
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Lakshya Sen, PV Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth
In what was a historic day for India at the BWF World Championship 2021, the country’s ace shuttles managed to confirm two medals at the marquee event. Kidambi Srikanth and Lakshya Sen cruised into the semifinals as they confirmed their maiden Worlds medals. With the two medals, India’s all-time tally at the World Championship goes up to 12.
The day started with defending champion PV Sindhu taking on top seed Tai Tzu-Ying. The first quarterfinal turned out to be quite a one-sided affair as Tai ran away with the match in straight sets of 12-17, 21-13. The Chinese Taipei shuttler got off to a strong start and dominated the first set. While Sindhu fought back in the end but it was too little too late for the defending champ.
The second witnessed the Indian stage a strong comeback as both the shuttles were neck to neck in the first half of the game. But as the second set progressed, Sindhu committed a flurry of unforced errors to hand the game to the Tokyo Olympics silver medallist.
Kidambi Srikanth and Lakshya Sen to face off in an all Indian semifinal of the BWF World Championship 2021
Kidambi Srikanth faced off with Netherland’s Mark Caljouw and it was a stroll in the park for the Indian. Srikanth hammered the Dutch shuttler 21-8, 21-7 to secure his maiden World Championship medal. He became only the third male Indian shuttler to achieve the feat with a dominant win.
Lakshay Sen took n China’s Jun Peng Zhao in his maiden World Championship quarterfinal. The 20-year old put up a brilliant performance to win the thrilling match 21-15, 15-21, 22-20 and join the elite list. Lakshay is the youngest Indian to bag a World Championship medal as his golden run continues.
In the last quarterfinal o the day, HS Prannoy went toe to toe with Kean Yew Loh. While Pranoy have had the wood over the Singaporean in their last two meetings, Loh pulled off a heist as he beat Pranoy 14-21, 12-21. This is the first time the Indian has lost a match with Kean.
BWF World Championship 2021 is the first time four Indians qualified for the quarterfinals. India has been assured at least a silver medal and a bronze at the marquee event. It will be interesting to see who wins the first semifinal, the all Indian shootout between Srikanth and Lakshya.
Also Read | BWF bans two Chinese shuttlers for match-fixing, betting
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Anshuman Mahapatra
(1496 Articles Published)