When Lakshya Sen trailed 2-8 in the deciding third game in Birmingham on Thursday, there was a sense of deja vu. It was the same scoreline he was on a few days back in Paris.
Then, it was the semifinal against reigning world champion Kunlavut Vitidsarn at the French Open. Then, Lakshya couldn’t arrest the slide as Vitidsarn ran away with it. Now, it was a second-round match against the red-hot Anders Antonsen at the All England Open, who hadn’t lost a match on tour till last week.
Now, Lakshya could arrest the slide briefly to gather some control. Now, Lakshya Sen was able to turn it around late on for a stunning fightback to win 15 of the last 17 points.
How quickly things can change in sport. Lakshya overcame the fourth seed from Denmark 24-22, 11-21, 21-14 in a 80-minute thriller to reach the quarterfinals at the prestigious Super 1000 tournament.
As Antonsen sent the shuttle wide on match point, Lakshya took a moment to let it sink in, went down on his knees on the grey court, and tapped it twice to let the steam out. As he got up, the first thing he did was to embrace his coaches – Vimal Kumar and Prakash Padukone – who were riding the rollercoaster along with Lakshya.
“It was a question of cutting down on the errors,” coach Vimal told The Indian Express about Lakshya’s turnaround. “When up 8-2 in the decider, Anders made a few casual mistakes and that was costly for him. At 11-6 change over in the third, Lakshya completely shut down on the error front and that was a huge plus.”
Vimal was seen speaking quite animatedly to Lakshya as the players changed ends. While 6-11 wasn’t ideal, Lakshya had done just enough to bring some momentum back to his side. “I was angry with him for the amount of silly errors he was committing and not getting really annoyed about it. I wanted him to get angry. And he
steadied himself from then on,” Vimal explained.
Right out of the blocks, Lakshya started taking control from the side where he struggled in the second game. 6-12 quickly became 9-12 as Lakshya hit three clean winners. A rare error in the end-game by Lakshya made it 13-14. And that would be the last point Antonsen won.
Drama followed as twice Antonsen was faulted for infractions at the net and on both occasions, he was incensed with the chair umpire (but replays suggested there was good reason for the calls.) It derailed Antonsen completely as Lakshya cantered to a win.
As good as the late fightback was, the opening game that Lakshya took 24-22 after some excellent net-play was crucial as well, as he set up a quarterfinal against Malaysian maverick Lee Zii Jia.
Impressive face-off as Lakshya Sen 🇮🇳 rivals Anders Antonsen 🇩🇰.#BWFWorldTour #AllEngland2024 pic.twitter.com/lrVsfnjsNo
— BWF (@bwfmedia) March 14, 2024
It wasn’t long back that things looked bleak for Lakshya, in terms of results as well as qualifying for Paris. But his team remained confident of a turnaround, insisting that physically he has been posting great numbers in training and looked in good shape. Vimal had said in Delhi that one of the things he was going to focus was on mental conditioning. Not just the random conversation here or there after training, but dedicated sessions. “It has to be more regular. When he comes back from Indonesia, I am only looking at that. Because he has to find the confidence back, the inner stability,” Vimal had said.
And a fitter, sharper Lakshya has turned his form around in the nick of time. The game is clicking for the most part, but the belief and drive are back. First, with three come-from-behind wins in Paris, and now with a fabulous fightback in Birmingham. Now, Paris is not just a distant dream but a highly probable reality.
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