Another impressive week ended with a creditable semifinal finish for star shuttler Lakshya Sen after he stumbled to a three-game loss against Indonesia's Jonatan Christie at the All England Championships in Birmingham on Saturday, prolonging India's long wait for the coveted trophy.
In a game of fine margins, the 22-year-old, who had finished runner-up in the 2022 edition, was marginally short as he slipped to a 21-12, 10-21, 15-21 defeat to world no. 9 Christie, the 2018 Asian Games gold medallist.
Sen, who reached the semifinals of French Open super 750 the previous week, has been on court for 491 minutes playing some nerve-wrecking badminton in the last 11 days and, perhaps, those gruelling three-setters might have taken their toll on him as he ran out of steam in the semis.
Christie will now face fellow Indonesian Anthony Sinisuka Ginting in Sunday's final.
Though he failed to go the distance, the last two weeks have been memorable for Sen, who was looking down and out after a series of first-round exits, including losses at Malaysia Super 1000 and India Super 750 this season.
The back-to-back semifinal finishes are likely to lock his Paris Olympic berth when the BWF rankings are published by April end.
All England Championships, the oldest badminton tournament in the world, has its own aura and Sen managed to beat fourth seeded Dane Anders Antonsen and Malaysia's world No. 10 Lee Zii Jia en route to the semifinals but Christie proved to be a road block which he couldn't circumvent.
On Friday night, Sen had displayed great mental resolve for a stunning win over former champion Malaysia's Jia to progress to the men's singles semifinals.
He produced good variations while attacking and kept fighting to outlast Lee 20-22, 21-16, 21-19 in an absorbing quarterfinal that lasted 71 minutes.
