Senior Badminton National Championship: Lakshya Sen to lock horns against Sourabh Verma in men's singles title clash

India's rising shuttler Lakshya Sen who recently annexed the World junior world no. 1 ranking registered an easy victory over Harsheel Dani to storm into the finals of men's singles competition at the 81st Senior Badminton National Championship in Patna on Monday.

The 15-year-old from Uttarakhand, playing his first Nationals, upset Dani, who had reached the semifinals of the Syed Modi Grand Prix Gold last week at Lucknow, 21-12 21-13 in a lop-sided contest.

The reigning junior national champion from Almora will next take on former National champion Sourabh Verma, whoknocked out defending champion and his younger brother Sameer 21-16 21-16 in just 23 minutes in another semifinal clash.

Sameer, seeded second, had defeated fifth seed PratulJoshi 21-9 21-11, while Sourabh, third seed, had beaten SirilVarma 21-16 21-13 in quarterfinals to reach the semifinalsearlier in the day.

In women's singles, Reshma Karthik, ninth seed, who hads hocked top seed Tanvi Lad 22-20 21-13 in a 47-minute crash early in the day, thrashed Aakarshi Kashyap 21-10 21-12 to setup a summit clash with second seed Rituparna Das, who defeated former  National Games gold medallist Arundhati Pantawane21-11 21-10 in another match.

14th seed Arundhati had overcome a stiff resistance fromSaili Rane 21-16 17-21 21-17 earlier in the day, whileRituparna had defeated 13th seed Rasika Raje 21-17 21-18.

In men's doubles, Nanda Gopal and Sanyam Shukla defeatedKrishna Prasad and Dhruv Kapila 21-10 21-12 and will face third seeds Satwik Sai Raj and Chirag Shetty, who beat BennetAntony and Arjun Kumar Reddy 21-16 21-7.

In women's doubles, third seeds Aparna Balan and PrajaktaSawant beat Mahima Aggarwal and K Maneesha 21-13 21-11. Theywill meet Shikha gautam and Sanyogita Ghorpade, who defeatedSruthi KP and haritha M H 21-14 21-16 in another match.

In mixed doubles, top seeds Satwik and Maneesha saw offseventh seeds Dhruv and Kuhoo Garg 21-18 21-13 to set up aclash with Gaurav Prasad Venket and Juhi Dewangan after thepair got a walkover from fourth seeds Akshay Dewalkar andAparna.