Sydney: Lakshya Sen marched into the men’s singles semifinals of the Australian Open Super 500 after defeating Ayush Shetty in straight games at the Sydney Olympic Park on Friday.
Sen, seeded seventh, repeated his earlier win over the 20-year-old—having beaten him at the same stage of the Hong Kong Open this year—by clinching a 23–21, 21–11 victory. He will now take on second seed Chou Tien Chen of Chinese Taipei in the semifinal.
World No. 9 Chou, the 2018 Asian Games silver medallist, came through a hard-fought encounter against Farhan Alwi, winning 13–21, 23–21, 21–16 in a match lasting 1 hour and 23 minutes. Alwi had stunned Indian veteran HS Prannoy in the round of 16.
Sen, 26, who reached the Hong Kong Open final earlier this season but is still in search of his first title of the year, faced a stern test from Shetty in the opening game. From 6–9 down, he stitched together a four-point run to move ahead 13–10. Shetty, the reigning US Open Super 300 champion, continued to push and levelled the game at 21–21, but Sen closed it out.
The second game of the 53-minute match was one-sided, with Sen surging to a 6–1 lead and extending it to 15–7 as Shetty’s resistance waned. Sen now carries India’s hopes in men’s singles following Thursday’s early exits of Prannoy and Kidambi Srikanth.
In men’s doubles, top seeds Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, who had reached the quarterfinals with a commanding win over Su Ching Heng and Wu Guan Xun of Chinese Taipei, were knocked out by fifth seeds Fajar Alfian and Muhammad Shohibul Fikri of Indonesia, falling 19–21, 15–21.
