India’s challenge at the BWF World Junior Championships came to an end on Friday after Lakshya Sen lost his quarter-final match against Japan’s Kodai Naraoka. Sen, the junior world No 2, was leading 21-14 before going on to lose the next two games 17-21 and 14-21 to the sixth-ranked Japanese.
Sen began the match positively and held a two-to-three-point advantage over his opponent until the score reached 16-14 in the Indian’s favour. The 16-year-old from Uttarakhand then won the next five points to take the first game 21-16.
Naraoka came back strongly in the second game and held a 11-5 lead at the break, a gap that Sen was unable to overcome as he eventually lost the game 17-21. Unfortunately for the Indian, it was more of the same in the deciding game, as a 10-6 advantage for the Japanese quickly turned into 17-6. From there, there was no coming back for Sen as he lost the game 14-21.