Indian badminton players PV Sindhu and Lakshya Sen sailed into the semi-finals of women’s and men’s singles events, respectively, at the Canada Open 2023 BWF Super 500 event in Calgary on Friday.
Both PV Sindhu and Lakshya Sen are looking for their first BWF title of the season and are India’s only remaining challenges in Canada Open.
PV Sindhu, a two-time Olympic medallist and a former world champion, defeated China’s world No. 45 Gao Fang Jie 21-13, 21-7 in the quarter-finals and entered her third semi-final of the year. It was PV Sindhu’s first win over Gao Fang Jie in four meetings.
The Indian badminton player made it to the final of the Spain Masters BWF Super 500 tournament in April but is yet to win a title this year.
In the semi-finals on Saturday, PV Sindhu will be against her rival and reigning world champion Akane Yamaguchi of Japan.
Sindhu, 15th in the badminton rankings for women’s singles, leads world No. 1 Yamaguchi 14-10 in head-to-head but was defeated by the Japanese shuttler in the first round of the Singapore Open last month.
On the other hand, world No. 19 Lakshya Sen registered a 21-8, 17-21, 21-10 win over Belgium’s world No. 62 Julien Carraggi, who had come through from the qualifiers, to make his second semi-final of 2023.
Lakshya Sen, the reigning men’s singles Commonwealth Games champion, will face world No.11 Kenta Nishimoto of Japan for a place in the final.
Lakshya Sen and Kenta Nishimoto have faced each other twice and have won one match each.
Lakshya Sen has played in 12 tournaments this year but is yet to play in the final.
The Canada Open 2023 final will be played on Sunday.
