IGI Logo

Indian men's badminton team on October 01 bagged the first-ever silver medal in the Asian Games after losing in the final 2-3 against hosts China in Hangzhou. This was India’s best-ever finish in team events of the Asian Games. China claimed a gold medal in the Men's badminton event at the 19th Asian Games for a second successive occasion. Lakshya Sen and the men's doubles pair Satwik Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty got India off to a flier but India failed to capitalize on it as they let the hosts China script a comeback and take the tie 3-2. Sensational Sen started the proceedings for the Indian team. He was trailing 10-14 at one stage in the final game but made a fantastic turnaround to win the game by 22-20. Sen had his moments in the second game but was playing catch-up for the most part. Both players showed signs of fatigue as the rallies grew shorter and the error count rose. However, it was Yuqi who came out victorious and struck back hard to take Lakshya to the deciding game. Yuqi extended his dominance into the third game and held a 14-10 lead over India. Lakshya made an epic comeback as he scored four consecutive points to draw level before pulling ahead in some fashion. 

He held four match points, and while he lost the first two, he made no mistake on the third instance, smashing it down the middle and giving India a 1-0 lead in this gold medal match.  Lakshya displayed tremendous grit, endurance, and in-game smarts to pull off a sensational win for India 22-20, 14-21, 21-18 against World No. 6 Yuqi Shi.