India’s badminton sensation Lakshya Sen becomes the country’s youngest player to qualify for the season’s final HSBC BWF World Tour Finals to be held in Bali, Indonesia from December 1.
Almora’s 20-year-old Lakshya has had an impressive run on the BWF World Tour and is currently ranked fifth in the World Tour rankings.
He will compete with Kidambi Srikanth (ranked third) in the World Tour Finals men’s singles event with two-time Olympic medalist PV Sindhu (ranked fourth) in women’s singles and Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy (ranked sixth) in women’s doubles as well as Satwiksairaj Rankiredy and Chirag Shetty(ranked 7th) in men’s doubles. The tournament will be shifted from Guangzhou to Bali due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Srikanth, Sameer Verma, Sindhu and London bronze medalist Saina Nehwal have played in the final tournament of the season.
Sindhu is the only Indian to have won the BWF World Tour Finals in 2018. Saina reached the final of BWF SuperSeries Finals in 2011.
Srikanth and Sameer had reached the knockout stage but could not make it to the final.
Lakshya had won five titles in 2019 before the international circuit was suspended due to Covid-19. He reached the finals at the Dubai Open and reached the semi-finals of the Denmark Masters and Hilo Open.
In the Indonesian leg, Lakshya could not reach much further in the draw, having lost to two-time top seed and two-time world champion Kento Momota of Japan.