Sen ousted by Qi at Worlds

paris: Top Indian shuttler Lakshya Sen’s campaign at the BWF World Championships ended in disappointment as he went down fighting in straight games to world No. 1 and top seed Shi Yu Qi of China in the men’s singles opening round here on Monday.

The 24-year-old Sen, a bronze medallist at the 2021 edition, went down 17-21 19-21 in 54 minutes. Despite pushing the Chinese to long rallies and producing bursts of his attacking brilliance, the Indian faltered in key moments, unable to breach Shi’s solid defence and explosive finishing.

Sen had come to Paris hoping to erase the memory of his heartbreaking fourth-place finish at the Olympics last August. Instead, he ran into the in-form Shi, who has won all nine finals that he contested since January 2024, and looked in complete command of his game.

With the win, Shi extended his head-to-head advantage over Sen to 4-1.

The match opened with both players engaging in gripping exchanges. A 47-shot rally early on ended with Sen misjudging a line call, handing Shi a 3-2 lead. The Chinese then unleashed two sharp smashes to move 10-6 ahead. Sen, however, capitalised on a few errors from his opponent and drew level at 11-11. . Shi broke away to 14-11 with a series of smashes, consistently targeting Sen’s backhand corner.