All posts tagged: India vs France

Lakshya Sen to miss India’s semi-final against France

Lakshya Sen to miss India’s semi-final against France

Published by Webster

India’s highest ranked singles player Lakshya Sen will miss the team’s 2026 Thomas Cup semi-final against France in Horsens, Denmark on Saturday. Sen, who registered a brilliant 88-minute win in the quarter-final against Chou Tien Chen, has not been included in the line-up for the all-important tie against first-time finalists France. Instead, the rising Ayush Shetty, who has been unbeaten in the tournament, will face off against World No 4 Christo Popov in the first men’s singles match. #News | No Lakshya Sen for India in the 2026 Thomas Cup semi-finals👀 Ayush Shetty, Kidambi Srikanth, and HS Prannoy will play the 3 singles matches against France Hariharan Amsakarunan-MR Arjun, Satwik-Chirag will play the doubles matches 📸: Badminton Photo/BWF#Badminton… pic.twitter.com/XCFI449m2c — The Bridge (@the_bridge_in) May 2, 2026 Veterans Kidambi Srikanth and HS Prannoy will play the other two singles matches. While Srikanth will go up against Alex Lanier, Prannoy will face Toma Junior Popov. Hariharan Amsakarunan-Arjun MR, and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy-Chirag Shetty will play the men’s doubles 2 and men’s doubles 1 respectively as usual. Why is …

Divya Deshmukh pulls rabbit out of hat with 17 secs left

Published by Webster

Divya Deshmukh was in a completely losing position in the fourth round of the Chess Olympiad in Budapest, with just about 17 seconds left on the clock, with three pawns lesser on the board than her opponent, women’s grandmaster Mitra Hejazipour. She had one move to make to stave off doom. By this stage, the top seeded Indian women’s team’s fate in the tie against France was in the balance, with Vaishali drawing her game but Harika Dronavalli and Tania Sachdev still battling in positions that could have swung either way. One of the nuances of the Chess Olympiad is that individual victories or losses can be easily offset by the rest of the team’s results so players always have to keep an eye on the adjoining boards to decide if they should push their own opponent, or settle for bloodless draws. Tania Sachdev, in fact, who was asked to play on the fourth board in place of Vantika Agarwal on Saturday, was caught in a complicated position at that stage. But she chose to …