Paris Olympics: Lakshya Sen misses out on historic bronze with defeat to Malaysia’s Lee Zii Jia

Paris: Lakshya Sen missed out on what could have been a historic bronze medal for India as he lost 1-2 against World No.7 Lee Zii Jia of Malaysia, doing down 21-13, 16-21, 11-21 in a heart-breaking bronze medal encounter which carried on for a total of 71 minutes.

A case of nerves seemed to be playing in Lakshya’s mind in his loss in the semifinals against Viktor Axelsen but that did not seem to be the case in the bronze medal match. Lakshya Sen also had a lot in his favour as he held a 4-1 head-to-head advantage against his Malaysian opponent going into Monday's match.

In the first game of the bronze medal match, Sen started on a strong foot and took the lead with a 21-13 win.

The second game saw Sen get off to a strong start but a late charge by Zii Jia saw him take a solid 12-8 lead before Sen won four points in a row to tie the scores. A missed drop by the Indian saw the Malaysian seal the game 1-1 with a 16-21 victory in the second game.

The Malaysian started the third game just the way he finished the second and took an early 9-2 lead.

But just when all hopes seemed lost, Sen tried to revive his medal hopes and clawed back into the contest. But Lee kept thwarting his attempts to gain any momentum and maintained a solid lead throughout and won the game 21-11.

Sen’s loss denied India its fourth medal at the ongoing Paris Olympic Games. The three medals so far have all come from shooting with Manu Bhaker (women’s 10M air pistol), Manu-Sarabjot (mixed team 10 m air pistol), and Swapnil Kusale (men’s 25m rifle three positions) having secured medals so far.

Lakshya carved his path to the bronze medal match in emphatic fashion. He first had the huge task of facing World No.4 Jonatan Christie of Indonesia in the Group Stage, whom he defeated 21-18, 21-12 to book his spot in the Round of 16.

The 22-year-old Indian shuttler then got the better of compatriot H.S Prannoy, beating him without much trouble in a one-sided clash that ended 21-12, 21-6 in his favour. Sen then created history by becoming the first Indian to reach the men's singles semifinals by beating Taiwan's Chou Tien-Chen 18-21, 21-17, 21-13 in a dramatic matchup.

Despite the mighty impressive performance throughout the campaign, Sen took the lead in both games against reigning Olympic champion, Denmark’s Viktor Axelsen but ended up losing 20-22 and 14-21 to bow out of contention for the gold and silver medals.

Sen was the last hope of the Indian badminton contingent in Paris as medal hopefuls P.V Sindhu, Satwik-Chirag and HS Prannoy had already been eliminated.