Shuttler Lakshya Sen settles for silver in Youth Olympics

TIL Desk Sports/ Indian shuttler Lakshya Sen settled for a silver medal after he lost in the men’s singles final against Li Shifeng of China in straight games at the Youth Olympics in Buenos Aires on Friday.

Sen, the reigning junior Asian champion, lost 15-21, 19-21 in a 42-minute encounter to bag the silver. He had beaten Shifeng in straight games in the quarter-finals of the Asian Championships in July but on Friday, it was the turn of his Chinese rival to turn the tables on him.

In both the games, Shifeng led all through and Sen was playing catch-up which he eventually could not succeed in the end. In the first game, Shifeng took an early lead and raced to 14-5 in no time.

Sen made a fine recovery to narrow down the gap to 13-16 but he could not sustain it and Shifeng went ahead 18-13 and then made it 20-14 before clinching the first game in 17 minutes.

The second game was a closer fight than the first but the Chinese was leading all the time. Shifeng was ahead 8-7 initially but the gap widened to 12-7 before Sen made it 11-14. The three-point gap remained for some time before the Chinese stretched it to 19-14.