Indian badminton fans had much to cheer for on Friday as both Lakshya Sen and Tharun Mannepalli secured their spots in the men’s singles semi-finals of the 2025 Macau Open Super 300, notching up gritty three-game victories over Chinese opponents.
For Lakshya, this marked his first semifinal appearance on the BWF World Tour since winning the Syed Modi International late last year, breaking a streak of 10 early exits. Up against Xuan Chen Zhu, the rising Chinese shuttler and Thailand Masters semi-finalist, Lakshya came out with renewed intent.
Meanwhile, 23-year-old Tharun Mannepalli showed tremendous poise as he stunned the reigning junior world champion Zhu An Hu in a nail-biting encounter.
But, it didn’t last long as both Tharun and Lakshya bowed out in the semi-finals after losing their matches against Malaysian (Justin Hoh) and Indonesian (Alwi Farhan) opponents, respectively.
As it happened:
