‘Underdog’ Lakshya Sen will play freely in maiden Olympics, feels coach Vimal

The presence of some established foes notwithstanding, Indian shuttler Lakshya Sen has got a “fair” draw in his debut Olympics, according to his coach Vimal Kumar, who expects the youngster to play freely in Paris thanks to his “underdog” status and some technical improvements in his overall game.

World No. 19 Sen’s path to an Olympic medal has multiple hurdles as he will need to get past familiar Indonesian nemesis Jonatan Christie, last Olympics’ surprise semifinalist Kevin Cordon from Guatemala, and Julian Carraggi from Belgium in Group L.

“I think it (the draw) is very fair, I feel it is a very reasonable draw for him,” Vimal, a former India coach, told PTI from Marseille, France where Sen is currently training ahead of the Paris Olympics.

“A couple of times, he has lost to Jonathan Christie in close matches. It’s a 50-50 match. You have to convert (chances) to get to the second stage. In my opinion, Lakshya has nothing to lose. He will be the underdog and he can play a lot more freely,” he asserted.

Describing Sen as a big-match player, Vimal said he expects Sen to trump former Asian Games champion Christie, who was also a part of Indonesia’s Thomas Cup-winning team in 2022.

Vimal said Sen has worked on his front-court alertness and closing-stage composure. The 22-year-old would aim to become the first Indian male shuttler to finish on the Olympic podium.

India’s previous badminton medals at the Games have been clinched by Saina Nehwal (bronze in 2012, London) and P V Sindhu (silver in 2016, Rio de Janeiro and bronze in 2020, Tokyo) “Jonathan will be the last match of the group and Lakshya should pull through. So I see a lot of positives. Not going to the Canada Open was a dampener but he has overcome that. Being away here in similar conditions will help him,” Vimal said referring to Sen being forced out of his title defence in Canada Open owing to visa issues.

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To prepare the player from Almora, Korea’s Yoo Yong-Sung, a two-time men’s doubles Olympic silver-medallist, was brought back to polish his net game, improve his on-court pace and dial up the focus in crunch situations. Yong-Sung had worked with Sen in 2022 “We have brought in a lot of speed work into closing stages, we introduced a lot of double drills in finishing, pushing the pace towards certain points. Last three weeks, Yoo Yong-Sung has been helping us with those drills,” Vimal said.

Vimal said Sen has also been doing a lot of service variations practice.

“(The idea is) basically to bring in some sort of intensity in the routines. Certain sets of routines that we follow are mostly singles-oriented. He (Sen) worked on those flat exchanges, retrieving and things like approaching the net and being a little more alert at the net,” Vimal explained.

For the last one week, Sen has been training at the Halles des Sports Parsemain in Fos-sur-Mer, which is about 45 minutes from Marseille city centre.

Sen is also training with the Olympic-bound Popov brothers — Christo and Toma Junior — till July 21. Indian shuttlers Kiran George, Ayush Shetty have been roped in too for sparring.

“Next week we will be doing one set of tournament practice because he needs that little bit of that match practice. It would have been good to see him in Canada. So next week I want to see how he is implementing what he learned.

“Against both the Popov brothers, it will be a good test. So I’ll be able to assess him. Once he gets into the village in Paris, we won’t get to play much. We will have limited time for practice in the main arena.” Lakshya had struggled through much of 2023 and early part of 2024. He fell behind in the qualification race but turned things around in time with two semifinal finishes at the All England Championship and the French Open to seal his place in the Olympics.

“From all that he has survived, he got an opportunity to qualify. He has been practising and has worked on his game. Lakshya has acclimatised to the conditions, he plays well there in those conditions.

“We have also got some of that tournament shuttlecock (F-90) because the conditions are a little on the slower side in Paris. So we have been practising with those shuttles,” said Vimal, who guided Saina Nehwal to world No. 1 in 2015.

Sen, along with his coach, will be leaving for Paris on July 22.