NEW DELHI: Lakshya Sen has achieved what he couldn’t for the last four years -- beat Indonesia’s Jonatan Christie. This is despite Christie being one of the favourites for the men’s singles gold at Paris, despite him being the third seed, world No.4, reigning Asian and All England champion. And despite losing the toss.

Coming into the Porte de la Chapelle Arena, Lakshya had a 1-4 record against Christie with his only win having come in February 2020. Since then, all four matches have gone to three games, but the Indonesian has managed to come out on top each time.

But not on Wednesday as the reigning Commonwealth Games champion, who has a record of performing well at the big stage, upset the world No.4 21-18, 21-12 in 50 minutes to qualify for the Round of 16 by winning Group L at the Paris Olympics.

Jonatan took off well, taking a lead of 5-0 and then 7-2 but Lakshya fought back to level the contest at 8-all by winning seven straight points. Just like his previous two group matches, he attacked the net a lot more, chose the right shots and took advantage of Christie’s mistakes, who looked nervous and error prone.

Jonatan showed moments of brilliance using his cross-court half smashes to keep the contest tight, but the nervy Indonesian regularly made errors which allowed Sen to take advantage.

Though the world No.22 led 11-10 at the break, it remained neck and neck till the closure of the game. Knowing Lakshya’s game well, Jonatan kept targeting the Indian’s back hand in the rear corner. But that also allowed Lakshya to play a sensational behind the back shot to earn two game points, converting on his first chance.

Lakshya gained a lot of confidence as the match progressed, having won the first game from the disadvantaged end. He continued to build momentum as he went into the mid-game interval with a solid 11-6 lead in the second game.

Now playing from the disadvantaged end, more and more number of Jonatan’s birds kept going out, handing easy points to Lakshya, who eventually had eight match points, winning on his first.

Lakshya will now await the winner of the Group K match between world No.13 HS Prannoy and world No.70 Le Duc Phat of Vietnam that will be played later in the day. The Round of 16 match will be played on Thursday.

PV Sindhu barely broke a sweat as she swept aside Kristin Kuuba of Estonia 21-5, 21-10 to win Group M and advance to the women’s singles Round of 16. The double Olympic medallist won in 34 minutes in what was the first match against the world No.73.

Sindhu will face her first real test of the Paris Olympics next as she faces Chinese sixth seed He Bing Jiao, who won Group N. It will be a rematch of Tokyo 2020’s bronze medal playoff where Sindhu came out on top in straight games.

However, back then Sindhu was the higher seeded and ranked player. Now it is the world No.9 Chinese, who has an 11-9 head-to-head advantage against the former world champion. Significantly, since that bronze playoff in Tokyo three years ago, the head-to-head is a shared 2-2 with Thursday’s match being their first of this year.

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