Badminton: Indian shuttlers Lakshya Sen, Satwik-Chirag fall at final hurdle at Hong Kong Open 2025
Sen loses Hong Kong Open final to Li Shifeng
It has been a tough year for Indian badminton, with several of the nation’s top players, including Olympian PV Sindhu and HS Prannoy, struggling to find their best form on the 2025 BWF World Tour.
However, having qualified four players for the men’s singles event at the 2025 Hong Kong Open, India’s chances of getting one of their stars to the final were significantly improved, and it was star shuttler Lakshya Sen who rose to the occasion.
The world number 20 entered the final as the underdog with most of the best betting sites in India despite downing Chou Tien-chen, who is ranked 11 places above him in the world badminton rankings, in straight sets 23-21, 22-20 in the semi-final.
Unfortunately, Sen was unable to find the same level of performance against world number four Li Shifeng in the grand finale and lost to the Chinese star 21-15, 21-12 at the Hong Kong Coliseum in under an hour.
Although Sen was visibly disappointed after the match, the result does mark his first appearance in a final on the 2025 BWF World Tour, and will serve as an excellent platform to build on heading to the China Masters 750 this week.
Satwik-Chirag extend impressive run of form in Hong Kong
After winning bronze at the BWF World Championships 2025 badminton tournament in Paris the previous week, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty produced another impressive run in Hong Kong, reaching the final to claim their second medal in as many competitions.
The Indian duo kicked off the tournament with a hard-fought victory over Chiu Hsiang-chieh/ Wang Chi-lin of Taiwan before overcoming Peeratchai Sukphun/ Pakkapon Teeraratsakul and Junaidi Arif/ Yap Roy King in the second and third rounds, respectively.
Satwik-Chirag then delivered their best performance of the competition by knocking out Chen Cheng-kuan/ Lin Bing-wei in straight sets in the semi-final to reach their first final since the Thailand Open last year.
US Open 2025 winner Ayush Shetty only managed to reach the quarter-final in Hong Kong before bowing out to Japan’s Kodai Naraoka, while PV Sindhu endured another disappointing campaign, exiting in the first round against Line Christophersen of Denmark.
