Paths will be criss-crossing for world no.19 Indian Shuttler, Lakshya Sen in the upcoming summer Olympics in Paris as he will be competing with his established nemesis, world no.3 Indonesian Jonatan Christie, Guatemala’s semifinalist of All England’s match in March Kevin Cordon, and Julian Carraggi from Belgium all clubbed in Group L.
Sen is currently undergoing training ahead of the games in Marseille, France with his coach Vimal, who is stating the clubbing as rational mentioned, "I think it (the draw) is very fair, I feel it is a very reasonable draw for him. A couple of times, he has lost to Jonathan Christie in close matches. It's a 50-50 match. You have to convert (chances) if you have 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 further added, “Sen is a big-match player, I expect Sen to trump former Asian Games champion Christie, who was also a part of Indonesia's Thomas Cup-winning team in 2022. He has worked on his front-court alertness and closing-stage composure. The 22-year-old would be aiming to become the first Indian male shuttler to finish on the Olympic podium.”
Vimal also addressed how missing Canada open in May 2024, has affected Sen, “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," he averred referring to Sen being forced out of his title defence in Canada Open owing to visa issues.
To aid the outcome of desired results at the games, Korea's Yoo Yong-Sung, a two-time men's doubles Olympic silver-medallist, has been offering help to the badminton player, who has also 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. The idea basically is to bring in some sort of intensity in the routines. Certain sets of routines that we follow are mostly singles-oriented. He 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 week, Sen has been training at the Halles des Sports Parsemain in Fos-sur-Mer, which is about 45 minutes from Marseille city centre. He is also training with the Olympic-bound Popov brothers - Christo and Toma Junior - till July 21.
“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," said Vimal.
Indian shuttlers Kiran George, Ayush Shetty have been roped in too for cooperative competition, shared Vimal while also saying, "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”.
Lakshya, along with his coach, will be leaving for Paris on July 22. Allegedly, he struggled through much of 2023 and early part of 2024. He reportedly fell behind in the qualification race but turned things around in time with two semi-final 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," the head coach said.
Previously, coloured 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. Nehwal was guided by Vimal to world No. 1 in 2015.
Follow us
