In Lakshya Sen lives India’s Olympic badminton dream

Lakshya Sen in action at the Paris Olympics (Source: X)

‘Lakshya’, in Sanskrit, means aim. As in, a look at the target, preferably with unwavering focus. A moment of fluctuation can force errors and end in disaster. For about an hour and a half, Lakshya Sen sparred with destiny and a seemingly relentless opponent before becoming the first Indian to reach the Olympic semi-finals in the men’s singles section. The 19-21, 21-15, 21-12 victory against Chou Tien-Chen was a testament to his endless reserves of energy and tenacity. Badminton skills? We will come to that a bit later.

A tireless retriever of the shuttle, Sen was confronted by a player from Chinese Taipei seeded higher than him, who has conquered cancer. Chou returned almost everything hurled at him. There were sure shot winners that Sen smacked, only to see them coming back at him. From 2-5 down in the first game to have taken an 18-16 lead, he thought the game was his. Chou thought otherwise. He returned one shot after another from hopeless positions, cracked a few incredible winners and also took advantage of a few unforced errors from his Indian rival to go one up.

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It looked like game over. But Sen is a different ‘beast’, as people say these days. He is totally devoid of facial expressions and capable of miraculous retrievals when it comes to this game. He had to summon his best and tame someone undying in approach. It was advantage Sen at 11-10 at the midway point of the second game and after that, the player from Chinese Taipei had all escape routes blocked. Sen sent back everything and smashed winners when the opportunity permitted. The decider was a virtual run-over by the Indian.

In an Olympic badminton endeavour highlighted by the prospects of the men’s doubles pair of Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and PV Sindhu, Sen was the least expected of the lot to get this far. While his illustrious compatriots failed, this 22-year-old from Almora in Uttarakhand has raised fresh hopes. He is a proven performer, mind you. Sen has a World Championship bronze medal and a second-place finish at the hallowed All-England Championship.

He had a number of tremendous performances before going into the Olympic quarter-finals in Paris. Sen had beaten the undisputed king of badminton, Viktor Axelsen, in 2022, when the player from Denmark hardly lost a match. Chances are that Sen will run into the Great Dane in the Olympic semi-final. Axelsen will know that he will have pocket dynamite to contend with.

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