India’s star badminton player and former junior world no. 1 Lakshya Sen hasn’t had the best of 2023 so far, as he hasn’t progressed beyond the Round of 16 in the last eight tournaments, since August 1. It was only at the Japan Open in July, that he had a substantial performance and only lost in the semis.
A string of losses early on in the tournaments has led to a drastic drop in his rankings, as he is WR-17 as of now. That puts him at risk of losing out on the qualification to the Paris 2024 Olympics as only the top 16 players qualify for the tournament.
Threat for Lakshya Sen at Japan Masters & China Masters
It seems like nothing is going right for Lakshya at the moment, not even the draw. At the Japan Masters, he will be up against world no. 3 Kodai Naraoka in the first round itself. The latter enjoys a better head-to-head against Lakshya, having won three matches out of five. Then the week after that, at the China Masters, the Indian will be up against world no. 4 Shi Yuqi in the first round.
If he loses in the first rounds in one or both events, Lakshya will lose some very important points in the run-up to the Paris 2024 Olympics qualification. For now, there is only one Indian in the top 10 of the BWF rankings, and that is HS Prannoy.
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