Lakshya Sen stumbles in final game; India's badminton campaign ends without medal

PARIS: India suffered yet another heartbreak in the Olympics after 'darkhorse' Lakshya Sen stumbled in front of Malaysia's Lee Zii Jia, thus missing out on the bronze medal. After conquering the first set 21-13 in impressive form, Sen went down in the other two sets with scores of 16-21, and 11-21.

And with this, India will have to return home empty-handed with no medals in Badminton. Except for the revelation of a firebrand player in Lakshya, the badminton team disappointed India in the Olympics. Monday was Lakshya Sen’s glorious chance to become the first Indian male player to win a medal in badminton.

At one point, the second set was tied at 8-8 and later a close fight dragged the score to 16-19. As the match went into the third set, the Malaysian player put pressure on the Indian player with more agile moves ending the set with a clear margin of 21-11.

After PV Sindhu’s quick exit from the Olympics, all hopes were on Lakshya Sen, who was proving his mettle on the biggest stage with back-to-back wins. India won medals in badminton in 2012 London Olympics, 2016 Rio and last time in Tokyo, but Paris proved to be a different story.