Australian Open Super 500 badminton: Lakshya Sen clinches first title of the season

Lakshya Sen

With this victory, the reigning Commonwealth Games champion became only the second Indian to win a BWF World Tour title this season, following Ayush Shetty’s maiden Super 300 triumph at the U.S. Open

A fast and fluent Lakshya Sen ended a difficult stretch on the international circuit by clinching his first title of the season, defeating Japan’s Yushi Tanaka in the men’s singles final of the $475,000 Australian Open Super 500 in Sydney on Sunday (November 23, 2025).

The 24-year-old from Almora, who had endured a tough phase after finishing fourth at the Paris Olympics, capped a resurgent week with a commanding performance, outplaying the 26-year-old Tanaka 21-15 21-11 in 38 minutes and celebrated the win by putting his fingers in his ears.

Lakshya, a 2021 World Championships bronze-medallist, had last won a Super 300 title at the Syed Modi International in Lucknow in 2024. However, a top-tier crown had eluded him since his triumph at the Canada Open that same year, though he came close at the Hong Kong Super 500 in September when he finished runner-up.

Facing world No. 26 Tanaka, winner of two Super 300 titles this year at the Orléans Masters and the US Open, Lakshya displayed crisp control, sharp placement and clean execution to wrap up the contest without dropping a game.

With this victory, the reigning Commonwealth Games champion, became only the second Indian to win a BWF World Tour title this season, following Ayush Shetty’s maiden Super 300 triumph at the US Open.

Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty had reached the finals at the Hong Kong and China Masters, while Kidambi Srikanth also logged a runner-up finish at the Malaysia Masters earlier in the year. Lakshya made a confident start, opening up a 6-3 lead as Tanaka committed a flurry of errors -- hitting into the net, going wide and overcooking his lifts. A 35-shot rally ended with the Japanese shuttler again finding the net, before a lucky net cord finally broke Lakshya’s run of points. Two crisp cross-court smashes on either flank had Lakshya on the floor as Tanaka closed the gap to 7-9, but the Indian carried a three-point cushion into the mid-game interval after the Japanese sprayed another shot into the net. Chants of “Lakshya! Lakshya!” rang around the arena during the mid-game intervals, with a sizeable Indian crowd turning up to support him.