It was an all-Indian pre-quarterfinal face-off in the BWF World Championships on Thursday (August 25), which saw HS Prannoy take on the young prodigy Lakshya Sen. In what was a thrilling contest that went down to the wire, Prannoy defeated his compatriot in a three-set thriller to march forward to the quarter-finals.
After beating Kento Momota on Wednesday (August 24), Prannoy edged past Lakshya — who won bronze medal in last year’s championships — to win 17-21, 21-16, 21-17. There wasn’t much separating the two Indian players as Lakshya — fresh from his gold medal win in CWG 2022 — had the lead in the first game with Prannoy making a lot of errors.
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Lakshya enjoyed a 3-0 lead before the 30-year-old Prannoy levelled it at 4-4. However, the youngster never looked like conceding the opening game and despite the experienced campaigner Prannoy stretching the initial round, Lakshya won 21-17.
In the second game, Prannoy came to his own with a much-better performance. With a 6-3 lead, he stormed ahead before Lakshya showed his skills and character to come at par with him at 10-10. The 21-year-old even went ahead and was leading 11-10 before Prannoy came from behind to make it 14-12 and eventually pocketed the second and penultimate game 21-16.
The third and final game also lived upto expectations with both the players matching each other with every shot and providing some scintillating display of badminton. Prannoy led 11-8 and eventually used his experience to go past a competitive Lakshya by winning the last game 21-17. Thus, he moves ahead into the quarter-finals. He is now the only player in the singles competition, with Saina Nehwal also bowing out with defeat in her Round of 16 clash.
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