India’s top-ranked badminton duo of Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy were ousted from the Australian Open on Friday with their quarterfinal defeat to Muhammad Shohibul Fikri and Fajar Alfian.
The ace Indian pairing succumbed to a 19-21, 15-21 defeat at the hands of the Indonesian duo of Fikri and Alfian to exit the event down under.
Lakshya Sen defeated Ayush Shetty in straight games to advance to the men’s singles semifinals at the Australian Open Super 500 tournament on Friday.
The seventh-seeded Indian, who had previously defeated the 20-year-old Shetty at the same stage in the Hong Kong Open earlier this year, won 23-21, 21-11, setting up a semifinal clash against Chinese-Taipei’s Chou Tien Chen, the event’s second seed.
Chou, ranked
No. 9 in the world and a 2018 Asian Games silver medallist, overcame Farhan Alwi 13-21, 23-21, 21-16 in a marathon match lasting 1 hour and 23 minutes. Alwi had earlier defeated Indian stalwart HS Prannoy in the round of 16.
Sen, 26, who had reached the Hong Kong Open final but has not won a title this year, faced a tough challenge from Shetty in the opening game. The higher-ranked Indian trailed 6-9 before winning four successive points while trailing 9-10, taking the lead at 13-10.
However, Shetty, the US Open Super 300 champion earlier this year, fought back, repeatedly taking the lead in a see-saw battle before levelling at 21-all. Sen eventually closed out the opener.
The second game of the 53-minute contest was more one-sided, with Sen taking an early 6-1 lead, which quickly grew to 15-7 as Shetty’s challenge faded.
Sen is the only Indian remaining in men’s singles after senior pros Prannoy and Kidambi Srikanth made early exits on Thursday.
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