All England Open 2024: Indian Challenges Ends After Lakshya Sen Goes Down Fighting In Semi-Final

Indian challenge in All England Open 2024 ended on Saturday (March 16) after Lakshya Sen lost the men's singles semi-final against Indonesia's Jonatan Christie at the Utilitia Arena in Birmingham.

The Commonwealth Games champion Sen fought back from a game down to force the decider, but eventually went down to the Indonesian shuttler by a scoreline of 12-21, 21-10, 21-15 in an hour and 8 minutes on court 1.

This result extended the Indonesian's head to head record against Sen to 3-1. This also meant India's wait to win their first title in All England Open since 2001 will need to wait for one more year.

"I am pretty disappointed with the result but, overall, the way I played, surely, I have the level to be there and win the big tournaments," Sen said after the match.

"I have been through some tough patches before this, but there has been lot of support for me in social media but I couldn't do my best today. I made some easy mistakes."

Christie will now face fellow Indonesian Anthony Sinisuka Ginting in Sunday's final, while Sen, who has been on court for 491 minutes playing some nerve-wrecking badminton in the last 11 days, hints the gruelling three-setters might have taken a toll on him.

"All the matches that I played were long so I could feel it in the recovery, in the next day match preparation. All of them were required to win for that particular day," Sen said.

"Some of the matches I started really slow in the first set and having a good lead but not being able to convert in the first setter. This is one thing I would want to close matches in two games."

But these back-to-back semifinal finishes are likely to lock his Paris Olympics berth in the men's singles category when the BWF rankings are published by the end of April.

Earlier on Friday (March 15), Sen had shown great resilience as he fought back from a game down to seal a 20-22, 21-16, 21-19 win over former champion Lee Zii Jia of Malaysia to progress to the men's singles semifinals.

Earlier on Thursday (March 14), the recent French Open champions Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty went down in straight games 16-21, 15-21 to Indonesia's Muhammad Shohibul Fikri and Bagas Maulana.

Sen and some of India's shuttlers including PV Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth will continue their action on the European leg of the BWF World Tour in the form of the Swiss Open 2024, which is scheduled to be held from March 19 to March 24.