The semi-finals of the badminton competition at the Paris Paralympics began on the evening of the 1st, Japan time, and Daisuke Fujiwara (from Kochi City), who is competing in the men’s singles SL3 class, lost to an Indian player and will now aim for the bronze medal in the third-place deciding match.

Daisuke Fujiwara, who won the bronze medal in the mixed doubles event at the 2021 Tokyo Games, will be competing in the singles event at this tournament in the SL3 class for players with lower limb disabilities.
In the first round of the group stage, they defeated a Ukrainian player in their first match on August 29th (Japan time), lost to Bethel (Great Britain), the silver medalist at the Tokyo Games, in the match on the 30th, but defeated a New Zealand player in the match on the 31st, advancing to the semi-finals with an overall record of 2 wins and 1 loss.

In the semi-finals, Fujiwara faced off against India’s Kumar Nitesh, both of whom are right-handed and have prosthetic left legs.
The match was decided by the first player to reach 21 points in one game, and the winner was the first player to win two games. However, while both players engaged in an aerial battle, shaking their opponents back and forth from the beginning, Fujiwara’s finishing shots were lackluster, and he lost the first set 21-16.

In the second set, Fujiwara was unable to make any shots from the beginning, and by the time the interval came, the score difference had widened to 11-2. After that, his opponent continued to score powerful smashes, and the score difference gradually widened. He showed tenacity in the final stages and made a comeback, but it was not enough, and he was defeated in straight sets 0-2 (21-16, 21-12).

Although Fujiwara was sadly defeated in the semi-finals, he will now compete in the third-place deciding match at 7 p.m. Japan time on the 2nd, with a chance to win a bronze medal, his first as an individual in two consecutive Paralympic Games.