A relentless Lakshya Sen produced a gritty performance to beat Hong Kong's Ng Ka Long Angus and storm into the men's singles quarterfinals of the All England Open Badminton Championships here on Thursday. World No. 12 Lakshya, a finalist at the 2022 edition, looked razor sharp as he fought through intense rallies and physical exchanges to outlast Ng Ka Long, a former world top 10 player, 21-19, 21-23, 21-10 in a pulsating round-of-16 contest. "It was a very solid game, I think both the sets and also credit to him, he made a solid comeback in the second. I think I just didn't play freely towards the end of the second set and gave too many easy shots for him to kill," Lakshya said. "But yeah I think I was prepared again in the third set to just go all out and happy with the way I played in the third. "Tactically I was playing the right game both the sets and yeah it's just the last few points I didn't stick to the plan, just gave too many easy errors. But again, it was important to just switch off, forget the second set, forget the first set and just play the third set with the same game plan which was working."

Lakshya, a 2021 World Championships bronze medallist, will face either China's sixth seed Li Shi Feng or Ireland's Nhat Nguyen next. "I'm feeling pretty good on court especially, the last two matches and yeah now it's time to again recover, another tough match tomorrow so just have 24 hours and then just go all out," he added. The mixed doubles pair of Dhruv Kapila and Tanisha Crasto retired hurt after trailing 19-21 8-9 in their match against Hong Kong's Tang Chun Man and Tse Ying Suet. Lakshya came into the match after losing all three encounters against his opponent and fell behind initially in the opening game. He fought back from 4-6 down to establish a 15-11 lead, keeping the pressure on his opponent with aggressive returns and sharp placement. He extended the advantage to 17-13 with a well-timed overhead attack, but Ng Ka Long refused to fade away and narrowed the gap late in the game. At 15-17, Lakshya left one at the backline but it was judged out. The Indian had no video challenges left and had to let it go.