Nagoya: Indian shuttler Lakshya Sen suffered a second-round exit at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games, losing to former world champion Loh Kean Yew of Singapore in three games here on Saturday.
The World No. 14 Sen went down 12-21 21-15 14-21 to the 2021 world champion, ranked 13th, in a battle lasting more than an hour at the Ichinomiya City Municipal Gymnasium.
The defeat came just a day after the shock exit of former world No. 1 pair Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty from the men’s doubles, dealing another blow to India’s badminton campaign.
In the third and final game, Loh once again built an early advantage, moving ahead 8-3. Sen attempted a comeback and reduced the gap to 13-14, but the Singaporean shuttler regained control and stretched his lead to 18-14 before sealing the decider 21-14.
The defeat brought an end to Sen’s men’s singles campaign at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games.
Sen’s exit came after India’s men’s doubles pair Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty also suffered an early setback, leaving the country’s badminton hopes dependent on other competitors, including two-time Olympic medallist PV Sindhu, who begins her women’s singles campaign.
Meanwhile, India’s Sawan Barwal scripted history by winning the silver medal in the men’s marathon, clocking a national record time of 2:11:37.
In athletics, Tejaswin Shankar and Thowfeeq Noushad finished fifth and seventh, respectively, after the men’s decathlon 100m event, scoring 865 and 856 points.
In canoe sprint, Harshwardhan Shaktawat finished fifth in the men’s kayak single 500m semifinal and advanced to Final B. Meanwhile, Parvathy Geetha and Prasanna Kumar secured second place in the mixed kayak double 500m semifinal to qualify for Final A.
In fencing, India defeated Indonesia 45-24 in the women’s foil team round of 16 to progress to the quarter-finals.
