Lakshya Sen and India’s dream of a first-ever Olympic gold in badminton would not get fulfilled at Paris Olympics but the 22-year-old still has an opportunity to become the first male shuttler from the country to win a medal in the sport at the Summer Games. Sen is the first Indian male shuttle ever to reach the semi-finals, but he suffered a heartbreaking 22-20, 21-14 loss in the last-four clash against reigning champion Viktor Axelsen on Sunday.
Sen will be back in action on Monday (5 August) for a bronze medal match against Lee Zii Jia of Malaysia.
**Paris Olympics: News, schedule, medals tally and more**Lakshya Sen vs Lee Zii Jia match time: The match will be played at 6 PM IST.
Lakshya Sen vs Lee Zii Jia live streaming: The bronze medal match will be live streamed on JioCinema in India. The live telecast of the match will be on the Sports 18 Network TV channels in India.
Lakshya Sen vs Lee Zii Jia head-to-head: Lakshya leads the stat 4-1 and also won the last time they met at the All England Championships 2024.
What happened in the semi-final?
The Almora lad, a world championships bronze medallist, failed to capitalise on a three set points in the first game and squandered the lead in the second game after going 7-0 ahead to lose to the two-time world champion Axelsen in a 54-minute semi-final match.
This was Sen’s eighth loss to the Danish star with his only coming at the 2022 German Open final.
“If I would have closed the first game, then I would have had better chance of closing the match. In the second game also, I started well but couldn’t keep the lead,” Sen said after the contest.
On losing the first game despite being 20-17 ahead, Sen said “As the game went on, he started attacking more and I became passive, only defending. I should have taken chances and attacked more.”
He continued: “I would take my learnings and positives from this game and give my 100 percent in bronze medal match.
“My parents, brother (Chirag Sen) is there in stands to support me. My mother is cooking lunch and dinner and sending me. I have got lot of support from the crowd and hope they will come tomorrow for the bronze medal match also.”


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