China Masters 2026 Badminton Championships: Lakshya Sen loses to Victor Lai and is eliminated in the first round
India Lakshya Sen Bent down from China Masters 2026 Badminton Championship in the opening round, while Kidambi Srikanth He qualified for the quarter-finals in Shenzhen on Wednesday.
Lakshya Sen, 13th in Badminton rankingslost 21-14 and 21-7 in 38 minutes to Canadian world No. 9 Victor Lai, the bronze medalist in the last two matches. BWF World Championship.
the Indian badminton player He got off to a great start and led 4-0 but Victor Lai turned the game around and led 11-8 in the second half midway through the match.
The Canadian then won five straight points to open up a 17-11 lead and win the opener. The second match proved to be one-sided. Lakshya trailed 11-4 midway through the match and was never able to recover.
The defeat continued a halting season for Lakshya. The 25-year-old Indian has arrived All England Open The final of the tournament in March, but he struggled to maintain his form consistently and was eliminated in the second round at the World Championships in New Delhi last month.
Victor Lai has now beaten Lakshya in three of their four matches this year. Lakshya’s only win came in the All England semi-finals, while the Canadian subsequently triumphed in the Thomas Cup, China Open and China Masters.
Meanwhile, former world number one Kidambi Srikanth produced an impressive result to defeat Chinese Taipei world number 21 Qi Yu Jin 21-16, 21-15 in 35 minutes in the BWF Super 750 tournament. Badminton It happened.
The world No. 34 Indian player, who finished second at the US Open in June, will face Victor Lai in the semi-finals.
World No. 5 men’s doubles pair Satwiksraj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty started off with a 21-11, 21-16 win over Malaysia’s Junaidi Arif and Kang Khai Shing in 40 minutes.
The fourth-seeded Indians were tested in the second game, with the duo tied 16-16. But Satwik and Chirag won the final five points to complete the match in straight games.
They will then face Frenchmen Christo Popov and Toma Junior Popov in the semi-finals.
In women’s singles, Tanvi Sharma continued her impressive season with a 21-16, 21-17 victory over Danish Amalie Schulz, ranked No. 40 in the world.
The Indian No. 26 in the world won her first title BWF World Tour She will face Japan’s Tomoka Miyazaki, seeded ninth at the Taipei Open last month, in the semi-finals.
The mixed doubles duo of Dhruv Kapila and Olympian Tanesha Crasto also qualified comfortably, defeating Thailand’s Tonked Saihing and Tonroj Saihing 21-8, 21-9 in just 24 minutes.
In the next round, they will face Chinese Taipei duo Liu Kuang-hing and Hsu Yin-hui, who eliminated fourth seeds Tom Jekyll and Delphine Delrue from France.
But Devika Sehag withdrew from the women’s singles tournament after losing 21-18, 21-15 to Bulgarian Kaloyana Nalbantova.
In the mixed doubles, Rohan Kapoor and Ruthvika Shivani Jade lost 21-16, 21-18 to Chinese Taipei’s Wu Guan Xun and Li Chia-hsien.
