Lakshya Sen, Tharun Mannepalli bow out in semis, end India’s campaign at Macau Open 2025

MACAU(China): India’s campaign at the Macau Open 2025 came to an end on Saturday after Lakshya Sen and Tharun Mannepalli suffered defeats in their respective semi-final matches at the Macao East Asian Games Dome, as per Olympics.com.

With their exit, India had no more representatives left in the BWF Super 300 tournament. On Friday, the men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty had bowed out in the quarter-finals.

Paris 2024 semi-finalist Lakshya Sen, seeded second in Macau and currently ranked 17th in the world, went down in straight games against Indonesia’s Alwi Farhan, a former junior world champion and world No. 25. The Indonesian, seeded fifth, defeated Lakshya 21-16, 21-9 in just 39 minutes.

Lakshya began the match with three quick points, but Farhan responded with four back-to-back points of his own. From there on, the Indian shuttler was always chasing the game. Farhan looked in control throughout, taking the first game comfortably and dominating the second even more. This was Lakshya’s best run on the BWF Tour this year, having reached the quarter-finals of the All England Open earlier. Farhan now leads their head-to-head 1-0.

Meanwhile, Tharun Mannepalli’s impressive run in Macau also came to a halt. The 23-year-old, who made headlines by knocking out top seed Lee Cheuk Yiu of Hong Kong China in the Round of 16 and beating People’s Republic of China’s reigning junior world champion Hu Zhe’an in the quarters, fell short against Malaysia’s Justin Hoh.

Mannepalli started strong and led 17-12 in the first game, showing the same confidence that saw him defeat Hoh in the Thailand Open earlier this year. Though the Malaysian fought back, the Indian held his nerve to take the opener 21-19. However, world No. 45 Hoh bounced back in the next two games, winning 21-16, 21-16 to seal the match in one hour and 21 minutes.

Indian shuttlers will now shift focus to the Hong Kong Open, part of the 2025 BWF World Tour, which begins on September 9. (ANI)