Lakshya Sen’s Journey at the All England Open: A Lesson in Endurance and Improvement

Taking the scenic route to a destination is not the worst of things. The journey can be beautiful. But in sports, sometimes, it can prove costly. Lakshya Sen would know that all too well after his exertions of the last two weeks in Europe.

On Saturday, the 22-year-old from Almora in the hill-state of Uttarakhand gave himself another uphill task after a slow start. He recovered, briefly threatening to pull off another fabulous comeback, but ran out of steam against Indonesia’s former World No 2 Jonatan Christie. Lakshya bowed out of the All England Open Badminton Championships after a 12-21, 21-10, 15-21 defeat in 68 minutes.

That’s now back-to-back semifinal defeats for Lakshya over a fortnight when he played 9 hours and 19 minutes of badminton over eight matches, spending an average of nearly 70 minutes per match on the court. Only one of his eight matches was a straight-game affair, when he eased past Magnus Johannesen of Denmark in the first round in Birmingham.

The good news, as Lakshya’s team has been insisting, is that it shows how much his physical fitness and endurance have improved. That he won five of those deciding games is also an aspect he has improved from last year.

Looking forward, as a once-seemingly distant dream of Paris 2024 becomes a reality, the primary area of concern to address is starting matches better. That he dropped the opening game in five of those matches points to Lakshya getting off the blocks slowly, as he did against Christie. It is a problem he is aware of as he admitted fatigue played its part.

“All the matches that I’ve played were really long and I could feel it in the recovery, in the next day’s match preparation,” Lakshya said in the BWF mixed zone after the defeat. “Some matches, I started really slow in the first set, even having a good lead and then not being able to convert those first-setters that then went on to three games. I won some of those but I know this is one thing that I want to improve: close matches in two games. So that I’m a bit fresher.”

At his best, Lakshya usually plays net shots that just clear the top of the tape, making it difficult for opponents to counter him. Against Christie – who also has a solid net game – the shuttle was going a few inches higher than he’d have liked in the opening game. It gave Christie the chance to repeatedly punish him with close kills. It could well have been a case of the muscles being a bit too tight, and the shots being a tad loose. Those are the margins he had to improve, as he lost a glut of points from 6-6.

Lakshya Sen 🇮🇳 and Jonatan Christie 🇮🇩 in an intense contest for a place in the men’s singles final.#BWFWorldTour #AllEngland2024 pic.twitter.com/hkREbc0rGP

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Comeback

The course-correction happened quickly enough though. There was more tempo in the first six shots of the second game from Lakshya than most of the opener. And it wasn’t just all about pushing the pace, he varied it effectively as well to race to a 11-3 lead at the interval. Christie did find some rhythm after that break and as it did for Lakshya against Lee Zii Jia the night before, it gave him a foothold into the match.

The decider was off to a fantastic start in terms of quality from both players. But in an attempt to take control, Lakshya seemed to be over-exerting with his smashes, while Christie by default has a more energy-efficient strokeplay, A 325 kph winner from the Indian World No 19 for a 5-3 lead offered hope that he would carry on the momentum from the second game.

Then came a potential decisive 63-shot rally, where the exchanges went down to walking pace, that Christie sealed with a brilliant slow drop for a winner. From there on, the match started to slip away from Lakshya, who managed to stave off a few match points but the damage was already done.

Christie, not long ago, missed out on a World Championships medal after being 20-15 up in the third game. But he calmed himself down, overcame a few jittery moments, and lifted his arm up. The result meant a first all-Indonesian men’s singles final in three decades at the All England.

“As of now, I’m pretty disappointed with the result. But overall, the way I played the last two weeks, surely I have the level to be up there and win in the big tournaments,” Lakshya said.

The dream of going one better than he did in 2022 and matching the achievement of his mentor Prakash Padukone wasn’t to be realised this time.

“I’ll definitely sit back, and discuss with my coaches, try to analyse the two weeks much better because as of now I was just focusing on the next match after every game. Now it’s time to reflect, and watch those matches again. Take good things and keep learning from the mistakes that happen,” Lakshya signed off.

He couldn’t pull a rabbit out of the hat against JoJo, but the good news for Indian badminton is that Lakshya is most definitely on his way back and now knows what the next step is to level up further.

2024-03-16 19:10:25
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