City’s Lakshay wins medal at international badminton event

Lakshay Sharma has been making waves in the badminton world with his impressive performances. Adding another feather to his cap, he secured the bronze medal in the men’s singles category at the Cameroon International Challenge Badminton Tournament, held in Yaounde from August 21 to 24.

Lakshay is the first player from Ludhiana to have won a bronze medal in the men’s singles group at an international challenge tournament. Participants from Indonesia, South Korea, Japan, France, Australia, Canada and US, besides India, competed in the event.

Lakshay (19), a student of BA fifth semester at Chandigarh University, overpowered his experienced and high-ranked opponents to finish as a medal winner. He also improved his world ranking from 179 to 135.

Lakshay, a trainee of his father and Mangat Rai Sharma, an NIS-certified national-level coach, in the pre-quarterfinal outperformed Vishal Vasudevan (world rank: 104) from the UAE in straight sets 21-12, 21-15.

In the quarterfinal, Lakshay defeated Sending Triansyah of Indonesia 21-12, 21-15 to book his berth in the last four-stage. However, in the semifinal he fought valiantly before going down 22-24, 10-21 against Dmitriy Panarin (world rank: 92) of Kazakhstan and had to be content with the bronze medal.

This is the fourth international medal, bagged by this talented player. Earlier, Lakshay won a silver medal in Kazakhstan, a bronze in Czech Republic and another bronze in Poland.

Rittin Khanna, general secretary, Punjab Badminton Association and Mohinder Singh Grewal, president, Ludhiana District Badminton Association, congratulated Lakshay and his father on the outstanding achievement.