Lakshya Sen Creates Olympic History as First Indian Male Shuttler to Reach Semifinals

Lakshya Sen created history on Friday at the Olympic Games when he became the first Indian male shuttler to make it to the semifinals of the men's singles badminton event. Both PV Sindhu has returned with two Olympic medals, and Saina Nehwal won bronze in London 2012, but no male player from India had earlier entered these medal rounds at the Olympics.

Sen did so by going through a fighting Chou Tien Chen of Chinese Taipei 19-21, 21-15, 21-12 in an hour and 16 minutes of intense battle during their quarterfinals.

In the first game, Sen was initially behind as Chen surged to a 5-2 lead. After Sen had drawn level at 5-5, Chen again went ahead and built a 14-9 lead. Sen dug deep with a seven-point run that saw him take a 17-15 lead before Chen finally closed out the game at 21-19.

In the second, Sen took an early lead but Chen stuck with him. At 13-13, the former World Championships bronze medalist took control and scored five straight points to lead 18-13 before closing out the game 21-15 and forcing a decider.

In the final game, Sen soon stamped his authority to take a 9-4 lead. While Chen tried her best to fight back, Sen's lead was too strong to overcome and he wrapped up the match with a 21-12 victory to enter the semis.

Sen will face top-seed Denmark's Viktor Axelsen and Indonesia's Loh Kean Yew in the next round.

In the quarterfinals of the women's singles, fifth-seeded Akane Yamaguchi of Japan will square off against An Se Young of South Korea, while former World Champion Ratchanok Intanon of Thailand will oppose the seventh-seeded Gregoria Mariska Tunjung from Indonesia.

If not for fellow countrywoman and second-seed Chen Yu Fei, then He Bing Jiao of China would have made it to the semifinals after defeating pre-quarterfinalist PV Sindhu of India. The fourth-seed Carolina Marin from Spain is the Olympic gold medalist from 2016 and faces eighth-seed Aya Ohori of Japan.