Indian shuttler Lakshya Sen settled for a silver medal after he lost in the men's singles final against Li Shifeng of China in straight games at the Youth Olympics in Buenos Aires on Friday.
Sen, the reigning junior Asian champion, lost 15-21, 19-21 in a 42-minute encounter to bag the silver. He had beaten Shifeng in straight games in the quarter-finals of the Asian Championships in July but on Friday, it was the turn of his Chinese rival to turn the tables on him.
In both the games, Shifeng led all through and Sen was playing catch-up which he eventually could not succeed in the end.
In the first game, Shifeng took an early lead and raced to 14-5 in no time. Sen made a fine recovery to narrow down the gap to 13-16 but he could not sustain it and Shifeng went ahead 18-13 and then made it 20-14 before clinching the first game in 17 minutes.
The second game was a closer fight than the first but the Chinese was leading all the time. Shifeng was ahead 8-7 initially but the gap widened to 12-7 before Sen made it 11-14. The three-point gap remained for some time before the Chinese stretched it to 19-14.
Sen made a last-ditch effort to save the match by winning three straight points and then reduced the margin to 19-20 but his Chinese opponent was a hard nut to crack as Shifeng won the final point to pocket the second game and win the match to clinch the gold.
This was India's fourth silver along with three gold in the ongoing Youth Olympics.
Indian women's hockey team in semis
The Indian women's team notched up a comfortable 3-0 win over Poland to enter the semi-finals of the Hockey 5s competition of the 2018 Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires.
Lalremsiami (10th minute), captain Salima Tete (14th) and Baljeet Kaur (14th) contributed to the Under-18 team's victory with a goal each at the Parque Polideportivo Roca.
The first period of the quarter-final game started with Poland finding the first chance in the second minute as Viktoria Zimmermann tested the Indian goalkeeper Bichu Kharibam.
India's Mumtaz Khan also had a chance soon after but could not get past the Polish custodian.
Both the teams tried to get into the rhythm and find an opening to take the lead, but it was only in the last minute of the first period that Indian forward Lalremsiami made the breakthrough as she scored past Poland's Nicole Chruszcz to give her team lead.
India also had a few chances in the opening minuts in the second period, but it was only in the 14th minute where the Indian team delivered with two more goals as captain Salima Tete scored first and 54 seconds later, it was Baljeet Kaur's turn to register her name on the score-sheet.
The two quick goals helped India take a commanding 3-0 lead which eventually proved enough for them.
