After Pullela Gopichand, Srikanth Kidambi, Parupalli Kashyap, the upcoming Indian player in men’s singles from India is none other than the 19-year-old, Lakshya Sen who is a prodigy in disguise.
Lakshya Sen belongs to a badminton family from Almora, where his father, D. K. Sen is a coach, and his brother, Chirag Sen is also an international badminton player.
2017
Trained at the Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy, Sen has shown exceptional results at a very young age. He showed exceptional results in the Junior Badminton circuit which helped him become World no. 1 Junior Badminton player in 2017. Notably, he triumphed at the Bulgarian Open and the India International Series.
2018
Sen competed at the 2018 Asian Junior Championships and emerged victorious by defeating the top seed and World no. 1, Kunlavat Vitidsarn. Later, he participated at the 2018 summer Youth Olympics as the fourth seed where he settled for a silver after losing to Chinese player Li Shifeng in straight games 15–21, 19–21. He also competed at the Boys team event, where he helped Team Alpha win the Gold medal.
2019
Sen had a prolific 2019 season where he scripted 5 victories at different International Tournaments. Everyone expected him to perform intensely but nobody expected the 18-year-old to shine at multiple events. Lakshya sen revealed that training with Morten Frost played an important role in clinching those 5 BWF titles.
It was at the Belgian International in September where he earned the first title of the year. It was a smooth run for the teenager without dropping any games in the four matches that he played to earn the title.
The next was the Dutch Open, a Super 100 tournament where the level of competition eventually increased. However, Sen remained focused and played all six matches with grit and determination to win the title. He won the competitive final against Japan’s Yusuke Onodera with a stunning comeback 15-21, 21-14, 21-15 to taste glory at a Super 100 tournament for the very first time.
Following the Dutch Open, was again a Super 100 tournament, the SaarLorLux Open where the teenager faced highs and lows but his never giving up spirit found him another title. He faced a tough challenge against Finland’s Eetu Heino but Sen held his nerves and edged the Finn 21-18, 18-21, 22-20 to make it to the pre-quarter-finals. Moreover, Sen went on to win his 14th match in a row to clinch his 3rd consecutive title.
Moving on into the Scottish Open, he went on to win his second International Challenge and 4th title of 2019. The semi-finals and the finals proved to be irksome for the teenager but his determination found his way through the matches. A 9-21, 21-8, 22-20 win against Christo Popov and an 18-21, 21-18, 21-19 win against Ygor Coelho in the semi-finals and finals shows how hard Sen fought to earn the title.
He finished up the best season of his career with yet another title at the Bangladesh International Challenge where he was the top seed. He breezed past all the matches easily to win the title.
With such intensive performances, Sen became the youngest Indian men’s singles player to break into the top-40 with a career-high of 32 in the World rankings.
2020
After a glorious 2019, Lakshya Sen did not disappoint in 2020 as well. In the All England Open, he started off with an impressive 17-21, 21-8, 21-17 win over Hong Kong star, Lee Cheuk Yiu in the first round. In the next round, he showed great promise against the Danish, Victor Axelson but suffered a 17-21, 18-21 loss. Notably, Sen was the only men’s singles Indian to progress into the 2nd round after Kidambi Srikanth and B Sai Praneeth faltered in the first round.
Denmark Open was next for Sen which was the first tournament post the COVID-19 outbreak. Sen won the first round easily against Bulgarian, Christo Popov 21-9, 21-15. However, he lost against the Danish, Hans-Kristian Solberg Vittinghus in the second round 21-15, 7-21, 17-21.
Sen was looking forward to defending his SaarLorLux Open title but after the first round, he had to, unfortunately, withdraw after this father cum coach tested positive for COVID-19.
Final Thoughts
19 year old, Lakshya Sen is currently ranked World No 27 updated as of 17/03/2020. The newly added tournament points will get updated once the BWF unfreezes the ranking list. Moreover, Sen would look forward to improving his ranking to get into the qualifying stage for the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. Click here to know about the best performances of other badminton players.
