Lakshya Sen reached his first BWF World Tour final after almost a year early on Sunday morning as the Indian youngster defeated Kenta Nishitmoto of Japan in straight games in the semifinals of the Canada Open, a BWF Super 500 event, in Calgary.
Lakshya last played a final at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham in August 2022.
The Indian shuttler, who slipped out of the top ten of the world ranking to be ranked 19th now, needed 44 minutes to get the better of world no. 11 Nishimoto from Japan 21-17, 21-14. With this win, Lakshya took a 2-1 lead over Nishimoto in the head-to-head tally.
Lakshya, whose best this season prior to Canada Open was a third-place finish at the Thailand Open, will face the winner of the second semifinal between Kodai Naraoka and Li Shi Feng in the final on Sunday night.
Veteran shuttler P.V. Sindhu, however, went down to world no. 1 Akane Yamaguchi in her women’s singles semifinal encounter 21-14, 21-15. This was Sindhu’s second straight defeat to the reigning world champion. Sindhu also lost to Yamaguchi in the opening round of the Singapore Open.
Sindhu, who recently was dropped out of top ten to be ranked world no. 15 in the BWF women’s singles rankings due to a string of poor outings on the world tour, has been going through a lean patch. She has not won any titles since returning from an injury layoff in January.
Sindhu’s last title came at the Commonwealth Games in August 2022 where she sustained an ankle injury which had ruled her out for six months.
Sindhu had a runner-up finish at the Marid Spain Masters in March and a third-place finish at the Malaysia Masters.
