World championship bronze-medallist shuttler Lakshya Sen overcame a resolute Ayush Shetty in straight games to secure a place in the men’s singles semifinals at the Australian Open Super 500 tournament in Sydney on Friday (November 21, 2025).
The seventh-seeded Indian, who had beaten the 20-year-old Shetty at the same stage in the Hong Kong Open earlier this year, won 23-21, 21-11 to set up a last-four clash against Chinese-Taipei’s Chou Tien Chen, the second seed in the event.
Chou, ranked No. 9 in the world and a 2018 Asian Games silver medallist, overcame Farhan Alwi 13-21, 23-21, 21-16 in a match lasting a marathon 1 hour, 23 minutes.
Alwi had defeated Indian stalwart H.S. Prannoy in the round of 16.
Sen, 26, who had made it to the Hong Kong Open final but has gone without a title this year, had a tough time beating Shetty in the opening game, with the higher-ranked Indian trailing 6-9 before he won four successive points while trailing 9-10 to take the upper hand at 13-10.
However, Shetty, the U.S. Open Super 300 champion earlier this year, clawed back to take the lead multiple times in a see-saw battle before levelling it at 21-all when the senior pro finally closed out the opener.
The second game of the 53-minute contest turned out to be a one-sided one with Sen taking an early 6-1 lead, which swelled to 15-7 in no time as Shetty’s challenge wilted.
Sen is the only Indian remaining in men’s singles after senior pros Prannoy and Kidambi Srikanth had made early exits on Thursday (November 20).
The top-seeded Indian men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, who made it to the last eight with an easy win against Chinese-Taipei’s Su Ching Heng and Wu Guan Xun, will take on fifth seeds Fajar Alfian and Muhammad Shohibul Fikri later in the day, hoping to secure a place in the semifinals.