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HS Prannoy and Lakshya Sen are all set to take on each other at the Paris Olympics for their round of 16 match. This will mark the first time in the history of the sport that two Indians face off at the Games.
While a head-to-head record of the duo's battles on the national circuit isn’t available, it is Sen who has won four of their seven encounters on the international stage. The first time the two Indians battled each other was back in 2022 when they got down to business in front of a cheering home crowd at the Yonex Sunrise India Open.
In that match, the settlers treated the audience to a delightful three sets, before Sen walked away with the win 14-21, 21-9, 21-14. Their next clash saw the youngster emerge victorious once again, this time in straight games at the 2022 German Open.
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The first time HS Prannoy beat Lakshya Sen on the international circuit was at the Indonesia Open in June of 2022, with the scoreline reading 21-10, 21-9 in favor of the Keralite. Two months later, Prannay beat Sen yet again, this time at the BWF World Championships, only for the latter to take revenge at the Denmark Open in October.
The two Indians squared off against each other twice in 2023, with Prannoy winning in the first instance, and Sen doing the same a week later.
While the 22-year-old leads the duo's head-to-head record going into the Paris Olympics, an important note to the statistic is the fact that the Indians never faced each other when Prannoy was at the top of his game in 2023.
Paris Olympics 2024: India face difficult men's singles draw
Whichever shuttler emerges victorious in the battle of HS Prannoy and Lakshya Sen at the Paris Olympics, will go on to face a deep field at the Games. In the quarterfinals, the winning Indian will run into either Japan's Kodai Naraoka or Chinese Taipei's Chou Tien Chen. Neither Prannoy nor Sen have fared too well against the Japanese and Taiwanese in the past.
The winner of that encounter will most probably face defending champion Viktor Axleson in the semifinals of the Paris Olympics.
