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Teenager Lakshya Sen scored an astounding 21-18, 21-17 win over France's Thomas Rouxel to cause a stir at the ongoing All England Open 2021 Badminton Championships.
Lakshya slugged it out for 53 minutes to get the better of his unseeded opponent in the men's singles second round on Thursday. In the process, he became the youngest Indian shuttler to reach the quarter-finals of the prestigious Super 1000 event.
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Lakshya will square off against the winner of the Mark Caljouw and Nhat Nguyen encounter in the quarter-finals on Friday.
On Wednesday, Lakshya had put in a commanding performance to outwit world No. 18 Kantaphon Wangcharoen in the opening round.
Also Read: 'Prakash Padukone inspires me the most,' says Lakshya Sen
The world No. 28, who will turn 20 next year, is gradually leaving the junior circuit. Lakshya had won the 2019 Asian Junior Championships.
Lakshya Sen will be eager to find the winning momentum
Lakshya had to withdraw from the SaarLorLux Open Super 100 tournament last year after his father tested positive for Covid-19. A back injury kept him out of the Super 1000 tournament in Thailand earlier this year.
Lakshya did not play at his best and endured an early first-round exit at the recently-concluded Swiss Open.
Also Read: Badminton 2019: How Lakshya Sen became the most improved Indian shuttler of the year
In other notable results of the day, HS Prannoy succumbed to a loss against World No. 1 Kento Momota in a closely-contested 48-minute battle.
It was a neck-and-neck affair as both shuttlers mesmerised the crowd with the quality of their strokes. At the mid-game interval, the top-seed Japanese had started hitting his stride and clearly had more strength and power in his legs to raise the tempo of the match.
It was also the end of the road for mixed doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Ashwini Ponnappa as they lost in the pre-quarterfinals on Thursday.
Reigning world champion PV Sindhu, Sai Praneeth, Sameer Verma and sixth-seeded men's doubles pair of Satwiksairaj and Chirag Shetty will take the court against their respective opponents later in the day.
