Lakshya Sen clinched India’s 20th gold medal in the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games after beating Malaysia’s Tze Yong NG 19-21, 21-9 and 21-16 in the men’s singles final on Monday.
CWG 2022 – FULL COVERAGE | IN-DEPTH | INDIA FOCUS | OFF THE FIELD | IN PHOTOS | MEDAL TALLY
“When I came here I thought I would take one match at a time. I am very happy. Never thought of how to celebrate but after the match, I have to see how I celebrated it," Lakshya told CNN-News18.com after the win.
“I want to thank my team. (PV) Sindhu Didi’s match was there before me. I was warming up. Then also the National anthem was played. that also motivated me to go there and repeat it. It really felt good," he added.
Sen trailed for majority of the first game but stayed close to the Malaysian who had accounted for world champion Yew Kean Loh and Kidambi Srikanth in his previous two matches.
Sen made it 19-18 from 16-19 before Yong produced back-to-back forehand winners to gain a game point. Sen misjudged a baseline call after a gruelling rally to hand the advantage to Yong.
The second game was one way traffic after Sen led 11-9 at the interval. The Indian took 12 points in a row post the break to level the final. Yong made a slew of unforced errors and it seemed he wanted to preserve energy for the third game.
Sen was at his attacking best in the decider and led until the end. Yong tried his best to mount a comeback but Sen was unstoppable. He converted his first match point following a long rally, leading to a frenzied celebration that saw him throw his racket into the stands.
“It was tense in the start, I had to work really hard. Yong also played a great tournament. Congratulations to him as well," said Sen after a hard-fought contest.
Lakshya became the fourth Indian shuttler to win a gold medal in the men’s singles category after Prakash Padukone (1978), Syed Modi (1982) and Parupalli Kashyap (2014).
It also means that India have first and third podium finish in men’s singles badminton after Kidambi Srikanth clinched the bronze medal after defeating Jia Heng Teh of Singapore 21-15, 21-18.
In the other results in badminton on the day, PV Sindhu won her maiden gold medal in women’s singles, defeating Michelle Li of Canada 21-15, 21-13 as Satwik Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty also clinched gold medalbeating England’s Ben Lane and Sean Mendy 21-15, 21-13. Earlier, Tressa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand won bronze in the women’s doubles, beating the Australian pair of Wendy Chen Hsuan-Yu and Gronya Somerville 21-15, 21-18 in the 3rd/4th place match.
(With inputs from Agencies)
Read the Latest News and Breaking News here
Comments
0 comment