Lakshya Sen reaches All England Open final

BIRMINGHAM: World Championship bronze medallist Lakshya Sen showed nerves of steel as he stunned defending champion Lee Zii Jia of Malaysia to book a maiden final berth in the All England Badminton Championships in Birmingham on Saturday.

The 20-year-old Sen became only the fourth men's singles player after Prakash Nath, Prakash Padukone and Pullela Gopichand to reach the final after outwitting Lee 21-13, 12-21, 21-19 in a gruelling semifinal match that lasted one hour and 16 minutes.

While Padukone (1980) and Gopichand (2001) are the only two Indians to have won the prestigious event, Nath (1947) and women's singles player Saina Nehwal (2015) had lost in the final.

In the summit clash on Sunday, Sen will face the winner of the other semifinal match between top seed and reigning Olympic champion Viktor Axelsen of Denmark and Chou Tien Chen of Chinese Taipei.

"I was definitely nervous but I was just trying to play one point at a time and not the occasion," said Sen.

"Towards the end, I was just trying to not thing about the things that was going around, it was a All England semifinal and the thoughts were coming in but I was trying to keep myself focussed.

"I am happy that I won the match and I get to play tomorrow. I will take this time to recover and go all out tomorrow."

Sen has been in sensational form in the last six months. He secured his maiden world championships bronze in December, before winning his first Super 500 title at India Open in January and finishing runner-up at the German Open last week. Agencies

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