Lakshya Sen beat Indonesia’s sixth seed Alwi Farhan 21-12, 15-21, 21-11 in the Kumamoto Masters semi-final on Saturday, his first win in three meetings, to reach a second straight final and strengthen his bid for a place at the BWF World Tour Finals.
Kumamoto, Japan: Lakshya Sen finally has an answer to Alwi Farhan. The eighth seed, ranked 13th in the world, beat the Indonesian sixth seed and world No. 10 in a three-game semi-final on Saturday, after losing both of their earlier meetings. He now has a chance to follow his Hylo Open title with another trophy in the Super 500 final.
Sen takes the first, Farhan levels, Sen finishes
Lakshya won the opening game 21-12, a nine-point margin, and then dropped a game for the first time all week as Farhan levelled by taking the second 21-15. The decider went back to the Indian. He won it 21-11 to complete a first victory over Farhan and cut the Indonesian’s lead in their head-to-head record to 2-1.
Farhan had reached the last four by beating Kenta Nishimoto in the last 16 and then fellow Indonesian Zaki Ubaidillah 21-17, 21-12 in 43 minutes in the quarter-finals. His defeat leaves Indonesia without a men’s singles finalist in Kumamoto.
The semi-final also reversed the pattern of their earlier meetings. Farhan had won both previous matches, and the Indonesian arrived in Kumamoto as the higher-ranked player. Lakshya answered with his best badminton of the week in the first and third games.
A clean week until the semi-final
Until Saturday, Lakshya had not lost a game in Japan. He beat Chi Yu Jen 21-19, 21-18 after trailing 12-16 in the first game, then reached the last 16 and routed Dong Tian Yao 21-8, 21-14. On Friday he beat home player Yushi Tanaka 21-16, 21-15 in 40 minutes in the quarter-finals, the day Kidambi Srikanth lost 22-24, 15-21 to Koki Watanabe from 12-5 up in the second game and left Lakshya as India’s last singles player in the draw.
A year ago Lakshya also reached the Kumamoto semi-finals, where he lost to Japan’s Kenta Nishimoto. This time he has gone one step further.
The race to the World Tour Finals
The result matters beyond this week. Lakshya is listed 12th in the BWF World Tour rankings with 64,980 points and needs to move into the top eight to qualify for the season-ending BWF World Tour Finals in Hangzhou. A final appearance at a Super 500 event gives him a significant ranking boost whatever happens on Sunday, and a second title in successive tournaments would add more.
For Lakshya, the week has been a test of consistency after a title run at the Hylo Open. Reaching back-to-back finals on the World Tour shows he is carrying that form into Japan, and the ranking points from this week will be closely watched as the cut-off for the season-ending event approaches.
His opponent will be the winner of the other semi-final between Japan’s Koki Watanabe, who beat Srikanth, and Thailand’s second seed Kunlavut Vitidsarn.
Result: Men’s singles semi-final, Kumamoto Masters Japan (BWF Super 500): Lakshya Sen (India, 8) beat Alwi Farhan (Indonesia, 6) 21-12, 15-21, 21-11. Final on Sunday: Lakshya Sen v the winner of Koki Watanabe (Japan) and Kunlavut Vitidsarn (Thailand, 2).
