Belgian International Challenge: Indian shuttler Lakshya Sen beats second-seeded Victor Svendsen to clinch men's singles title

Leuven: Rising Indian shuttler Lakshya Sen stunned second seed Victor Svendsen of Denmark in straight games to clinch the men’s singles title at the Belgian International Challenge on Saturday. [caption id=“attachment_5660781” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File image of Lakshya Sen. Image courtesy: Twitter @BAI_Media[/caption] Lakshya was at his best as he notched up a comfortable 21-14, 21-15 win over Svendsen in the title clash that lasted for 34 minutes. The 18-year-old from Almora had earlier beaten Denmark’s Kim Bruun 21-18, 21-11 win in a 48-minute semi-final clash on Friday night. The semi-final clash was a close affair initially with Lakshya and Bruun exchanging leads frequently before the Danish shuttler jumped to a 11-9 advantage at the break. However, Lakshya erased the deficit after the interval and build on a slender 13-12 lead to slowly move ahead and eventually pocketed the opening game comfortably. Lakshya came out with all cylinders blazing in the second game to jump to a 6-2 lead early on and then reeled off five straight points to grab a 11-3 lead at the breather. The Indian produced another burst of five straight points to create a huge gap which Bruun failed to bridge.