Kidambi Srikanth created history by becoming the first Indian player to reach the finals of the World Championships by defeating Lakshya Sen 17-21, 21-14, 21-17 in the semi-finals of the BWF World Championships.
Faced with the swords in a historic match for Indian badminton, Srikanth took an early lead before leveling his young opponent at 2-2. Two more points and Srikanth was again in the lead.
Then it was Sen’s turn to take an 8-7 lead but Srikanth immediately took an 8-8 lead.
The 20-year-old Sen again took the lead and looked confident to keep the pace at 13-10 but Srikanth remained level at 16-16.
Sen dominated from there and managed to grab the first game and get the initiative.
However, Srikanth returned to the competition with a flurry of smashes in the second game and continued in the same manner in the third game, while the 20-year-old put on some decent defensive performance to emerge victorious in the match that lasted 69. Minute.
En route to the semi-finals, Kidambi Srikanth took an easy prey in Mark Caljouw as he beat the Dutchman 21-8, 21-7 in 26 minutes. Lakshya Sen displayed a restless appetite for a scrap to a stubborn Chinese, Zhao Jun Peng, 21-15, 15-21, 22-20, which included crossing a match point – one he won.
Between these two, Srikanth, a former world No. 1 and Lakshya, who is making his world debut, knocked out 3 of the 4 Chinese in a draw and were offered medals.
Two men’s singles medals had come to India in the last 38 years – Prakash Padukone in 1983 and B Sai Praneeth in 2019. This year’s world No. 1 Japanese Kento Momota, the top two Chinese and Indonesian were out in draws, and then a few other top tenors were kicked out of a fair and square game while playing indifferent badminton. But it was still the Indians who needed to overcome them on their way to their medals.