Lakshya Sen and HS Prannoy will lock horns against each other in the pre-quarter-final of the Men's singles event in Badminton at the Paris Olympics. There is an air of disappointment among Indian sports fans as one of them will get knocked out of the Games today and many eyebrows are also raised over two players from the same country facing each other so early in the competition.
"How are Lakshya and Prannoy facing each other?" "This is very unfair." These are some of the comments among the fans. Yes, it is unfortunate that two of the best badminton players from India will be knocked out today. But the draws were finalised even before the Olympics started. Here we will tell you why HS Prannoy vs Lakshya Sen is happening in the round of 16 in the men's singles event.
A total of 41 players participated in the men's singles event in Badminton at the Olympics 2024 and they were divided into 13 groups of three players each (only 2 groups had four players). A proper event took place to identify draws in the event with seeded players being put in different groups and unseeded players were then randomly allocated the groups. Also, to award seedings to the players at the Olympics, BWF rankings till 9th July were considered.
For India, HS Prannoy is 13th seeded at the Olympics. Accordingly, he was the best player in his group K with unseeded LE Duc Phat of Vietnam and Fabian Roth of Germany included in the same group.
However, Lakshya Sen was unseeded at the Olympics and was allocated group L randomly alongside third-seeded Jonatan Christie, who was the best player according to the rankings, in group L.
From every group, only the top player has qualified for the round of 16. Going by the draw, Christie was expected to top group L but Lakshya Sen played exceptionally to create a huge upset. If we have a look at the groupings and the draws, the winners of Group K and Group L are to face each other. Hence, Lakshya and Prannoy are locking horns in the round of 16.
There is no ambiguity whatsoever in this as the draws were live-streamed as well on the official YouTube page of the Badminton World Federation (BWF TV). You can view the entire draw that was streamed in below link:
