Sometime after the Indian Open in January, where he suffered his latest in a series of first-round exits, Lakshya Sen sat down for a chat with former All England champion and his mentor Prakash Padukone. Trying to get out of the slump in form dating back to the backend of 2023, Lakshya’s chances of going to Paris for the Olympics were hanging by the proverbial thread. Padukone asked then, “Are you just looking for a place in the Olympics, or are you trying to have a realistic chance of winning a medal?”
Lakshya responded: “I want to win a medal. So Prakash sir said, ‘then first you have to show us that you can win a tournament. You don’t have to go everywhere and try to reach the quarterfinals’. Even though I didn’t win a tournament in Europe, I managed to pull off two really good weeks with confidence-boosting wins. And once my qualification was confirmed, I realised that it was time to increase my training intensity.”
That is when he took the initiative to reach out to a familiar face. Lakshya will make his Olympics debut in Paris, and in the last stretch leading up to the Games, he has brought back Yoo Yong Sung, the Korean coach who worked with him in 2022.
Yoo is a two-time men’s doubles silver medallist at the Olympics, and it is this aspect that made Lakshya and his team take the call: to add the doubles intensity to his singles training routines.
“Singles sequences are important. But for improving pace of play, especially towards the end of games, doubles training helps. The sheer monotony with which the singles routines are done can sometimes get boring. When the doubles aspect is introduced, they enjoy training more, I feel. The pace increases, racket preparation, reflexes, everything is taken care of,” coach Vimal Kumar told The Indian Express at the Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy.
As Vimal explained why Yoo returned, Lakshya was undergoing multi-feed training with Yoo. In badminton training, there is single shuttle training which is how regular rallying would happen in a match. Whereas in multi-feed training, a coach on the other side of the net has a stack of shuttles that they keep peppering at high speed, not allowing the athlete any breathing space to react. It is not a realistic match simulation but practising at that pace, makes match situations look slower in comparison. And Yoo’s speed of multi-feeding is a sight to behold, as he bombards Lakshya with shuttles standing over a desk first mid-court and then from close range.
“The intensity with which coach Yoo operates can help me with my flat game and the drives and also, I think with the defense when someone is attacking, and then how to counter it. And also a lot of quick, tight, skill work, like taps on the net. I think doing those double drills makes you even more alert and sharpens the singles game. And mainly, for the multi-feed drills, the intensity is really good, I wanted to add that to my game,” Lakshya told The Indian Express at the end of his training session.
Taking stock of where his game was after the European leg, Lakshya took the initiative to ask Yoo if he was available for a short stint with him, dropped him a message, and despite a brief delay in arrival, joined up with the team post Indonesia Open. “Everyone was on the same page and OGQ made it possible within a very short period of time. We just wanted to go all in,” Lakshya added.
The 22-year-old’s next stop is in Marseille, France where he will train at The Halle des Sports Parsemain from July 8 to 21 along with the Olympics-bound Popov brothers, Christo and Toma Junior. Indian shuttlers Kiran George, Ayush Shetty will also be travelling as sparring partners. The similarities are aplenty between the Sens and Popovs. Brothers who play badminton (Lakshya’s brother Chirag is the national champion now), coached by the fathers (DK Sen and Thomas Popov), and a similar age group.
Lakshya became quite close with the Popovs when badminton resumed after Covid cancellations, with back-to-back tournaments in Bali where the players stayed in resorts. Conversations have been happening ever since about collaborating, and it was deemed that before Paris, training in France was going to be beneficial to all parties. Coach Vimal added that the Indians will take turns sparring with Toma Junior (who has qualified in singles) while Christov (who will play doubles) will do the same for Lakshya.
