Lakshya Sen beats Alwi Farhan in three games to reach the Kumamoto Masters final

Lakshya Sen is into the final of the Kumamoto Masters. The eighth seed beat Indonesia’s sixth seed Alwi Farhan 21-12, 15-21, 21-11 in the men’s singles semi-final on Saturday, November 14, at the Kumamoto Prefectural Gymnasium in Japan. The match, on Court 1, began at about 6:50 am IST and lasted about 69 minutes, according to reports from the venue.

It is the first time Sen, ranked 13th in the world, has beaten the 10th-ranked Farhan. He had lost both of their earlier meetings, and the win sends him into a Super 500 final for the second time in a fortnight.

How the semi-final went

Sen started with a 3-0 lead and pulled away at the interval to take the first game 21-12. Farhan answered in the second game, won it 21-15 and levelled the match.

The decider was one-sided. Sen won it 21-11. With the defeat, Indonesia has no player left in the tournament.

The record against Farhan

Farhan had won both earlier meetings. He won the semi-final at the Macau Open on August 1, 2025, by 21-16, 21-9, and beat Sen again in the round of 32 at the Indonesia Open on June 2, 2026, by 21-19, 21-16. The head-to-head now stands at 2-1 in Farhan’s favour.

The road to the semi-final

In the round of 16 on Thursday, November 12, he beat China’s Dong Tian Yao 21-8, 21-14 in 35 minutes. On Friday, November 13, he beat Japan’s Yushi Tanaka 21-16, 21-15 in about 40 minutes. Against Tanaka he led 11-8 at the first interval and 11-9 at the second, then pulled clear. He had also beaten Chi Yu Jen of Chinese Taipei earlier in the week.

In the first game Tanaka fought back with cross-court smashes, but Sen held his nerve to close it out, and in the second, level at 9-9, he raised the attacking pressure and built a comfortable lead. He is the last Indian standing. Kidambi Srikanth, who had beaten Japan’s Kodai Naraoka on Thursday, lost his quarter-final to Koki Watanabe 24-22, 21-15 after leading 12-5 in the second game, as we reported on Friday. The Indian doubles pairs had already gone, Hariharan Amsakarunan and M R Arjun losing 21-14, 21-14 to Japan’s Takuro Hoki and Yugo Kobayashi, and the World Championships bronze medallists Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand going down 21-14, 21-14 to third seeds Rin Iwanaga and Kie Nakanishi.

Back-to-back titles on offer

Sen arrived in Kumamoto as the Hylo Open champion. He beat Jonatan Christie 21-17, 21-10 in Saarbrücken on November 1, his first BWF World Tour title since the Australian Open a year earlier, as we reported at the time. A win on Sunday would give him a second Super 500 title in two weeks.

What it means for Hangzhou

The final also matters for the season-ending event. Before the semi-final Sen was 12th in the BWF World Tour Finals race with 64,980 points, and only the top eight qualify for the Finals in Hangzhou, China.

What next

The final is on Sunday, November 15. Sen’s opponent is the winner of the other semi-final, between Japan’s Koki Watanabe, who beat Srikanth, and Thailand’s Kunlavut Vitidsarn, the second seed. That match had not finished when this report was filed.