Does the impetuous Lakshya Sen have a Plan A against steady metronomes like Kunlavut Vitidsarn?

The young Indian did all the hard work in taking the opening set. But it was almost as if he felt the necessity to keep vrooming on the accelerator, without heeding to speed breakers. Wild hitting, sloppy rally patterns and restlessness to rush to victory without putting in the mileage, meant Kunlavut calmly raised his own tempo, kept his serene head and whipped off the necessary points to take Set 2 and Set 3.

The Thai led 12-2 in the second, and 15-5 in the third. And Sen had no plans except hitting his way through, trying to wrap it up, before he botched it.

How Lakshya Sen faltered

Sen doesn’t defensively falter when he falls behind. But he does get consumed by staying in the rally, sometimes rooted to a spot, and doesn’t snap out of that siege-mode quick enough to counter. His attack lost all direction, and literally deflated in the second and third. He allowed Kunlavut to dictate rallies, and having lost monopoly on the pace, couldn’t summon enough patience to slow things down, recalibrate and construct points all over again.

Kunlavut simply kept the shuttle in play, and did enough to sharpen his speed.

The Indian’s grit with the insane defensive work rate and dramatic retrieves will always outshine his killer-shot: a glamorous little rabbitty hop off the surface and an arched racquet down-the-line smash. It’s quite unlike anyone else’s straight stick smash, because it’s unreal acceleration from round the head. He times his little leap perfectly, and gives the shuttle the catapult treatment, a snappy zap that sends it swirling into open space. When a winner, it looks fantastic as it did when he closed out the first set to break the 20-20 deadlock.

But it’s not a sure-shot winner: and Kunlavut twice struck his hand out horizontally and used his own rubber wrists for forehand defensive winners as he ran away with a 12-2 lead in the second.

Sen managed a better start than his previous three matches taking the opener. Partly because Kunlavut was taking his time to find his range. And when the monkish Thai does that, the pace on his strokes tends to be gentler, so Sen snuck in some pace-laced points. Sen would exploit his backhand far corner, and then attack straight on the other flank with the round the head.

Whenever he could force the pace, Sen hurried the Thai. But that blistering pace is impossible to sustain over three sets, and Sen doesn’t help himself by wild, often mindless hitting to keep pretence of the pace. It’s how he literally frittered the second set and most of the third.

Addicted to the tempo, Sen simply couldn’t work himself into any composure from the start of the second set. He had relied on Kunlavut erring on the back line, but the Thai found his radar, and started smashing within the lines. As soon as his autonomy over the pace of the match was taken away, and that was to be expected, Sen fell apart.

At 11-19 in the decider he didn’t disguise his impatience with such wild hitting that even Prakash Padukone might be driven to having a stern word. The flashy backhand jump drop bulged the net as he pirouetted, with nothing to gain from that little dance. Sen has the game to beat anybody. But he also has the impatience to lose anytime, slip from any vantage point.