India’s Lakshya Sen and doubles duo Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty registered victories on Saturday to march into the men’s singles and doubles finals, respectively, at the Hong Kong Open 2025 badminton tournament.
World No. 20 Lakshya Sen stunned Chou Tien-chen, ninth in the men’s singles badminton rankings, 23-21, 22-20 at the Hong Kong Coliseum.
In the first game, Lakshya Sen began by opening up a 3-0 lead and held an 11-7 advantage at the interval.
However, third seed Chou Tien-chen battled his way back into the contest to level things up and even saved two game points before eventually losing the opener.
Chou Tien-chen switched gears in the second game and had a cushion of three game points to force a decider.
Lakshya, a Paris 2024 semi-finalist, however, had other plans as he demonstrated tremendous composure and resolve by saving all three game points en route to closing out the match with five consecutive points.
Lakshya Sen will face Olympian and world No. 9 Li Shifeng in the final of the Hong Kong Open. This will be the Indian badminton player’s first final on the BWF World Tour since winning the Syed Modi International last year.
Meanwhile, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty stormed into the men’s doubles final at the BWF Super 500 tournament after a 21-17, 21-15 win over Chinese Taipei’s Lin Bing-wei and Chen Cheng Kuan.
Following five semi-final exits this year, Satwik-Chirag’s appearance in the Hong Kong Open 2025 final will be their first in the 2025 season.
After winning the opening game of the match fairly comfortably, the Indian badminton players trailed 11-9 in the second before winning 12 of the next 16 points to win the match and qualify for the title match.
Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty will face sixth seeds and Paris 2024 silver medallists Liang Weikeng and Wang Chang of China in the final.
The Indian pair have beaten Liang Weikeng and Wang Chang in three of their nine meetings so far, including in their last encounter at the BWF World Championships last year.