Lakshya Sen’s impressive run at the Kumamoto Japan Masters Super 500 tournament came to an end on Saturday in the semifinals as he lost to local favourite Kenta Nishimoto in a three-game battle. World number 13 Nishimoto prevailed in 77 minutes against Lakshya, ranked two places below him, 21-19, 14-21, 21-12 in 77 minutes.

As per ranking trackers, the defeat marked the end of Lakshya’s outside chances of making it to the season-ending BWF World Tour Finals where the top 8 shuttlers over the course of the calendar from each of the five disciplines compete. Lakshya’s late-season resurgence, where he made it to the final at Hong Kong Open and semifinals at Macau Open, came a bit late for him to make the cut to the lucrative year-ender. The string of first or second round exits in the first

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