Badminton News: Indian badminton star Lakshya Sen reached his first BWF World Tour final after nearly a year early Sunday morning when the youngster beat Japan’s Kenta Nishitmoto in back-to-back semi-final matches at the Canada Open BWF Super 500 event in Calgary.

Lakshya Sen last played in the Commonwealth Games final in Birmingham in August 2022.

The Indian badminton player, who moved from the top 10 in the world rankings to now 19th, took 44 minutes to get the better of world number 11 Japan’s Nishimoto 21-17, 21-14.

With the win, Lakshya takes a 2-1 lead over Nishimoto in the heads-up.

Lakshya, whose best performance of the season before the Canada Open was third at the Thailand Open, will face the winner of the second semi-final between Kodai Naraoka and Li Shi Feng in the final on Sunday night.

However, veteran badminton player PV Sindhu has dropped in the world rankings. 1 Akane Yamaguchi in the women’s singles semi-final 21-14, 21-15.

It was Sindhu’s second straight loss to the reigning world champions. Sindhu also lost to Yamaguchi in the first round of the Singapore Open.

Sindhu, who recently dropped out of the top ten to rank no. 15 in the BWF Women’s Singles Ranking due to a series of poor performances on the World Tour, has been on a bad streak.

He hasn’t won a title since returning from an injury layoff in January. Sindhu’s last title came at the Commonwealth Games in August 2022 where she picked up an ankle injury which sidelined her for six months.

Tags: Lakshya Sen, Kenta Nishimoto, Canada Open 2023