The beauty of badminton as Lakshya Sen has highlighted on two successive days is, you needn’t pin your opponent and corner them to the edges of the court. Sending the shuttle into that far, back corner where the opponent will wish for extendable limbs in chasing that fluttering flighty bird, always gets the job done. After NG Ka Long Angus of Hong Kong, Lakshya Sen kept sending tracer bullet shuttles to Chinese Li Shifeng’s far forehand back corner, to set the early tone and eventually won the match 21-13, 21-16 in 60 glorious minutes.
Sen didn’t corner Shifeng, he just used the corners to show the Chinese up.
The Chinese men’s singles game, relies on committing to the front court from where they try dominating the net. So the right knee goes across in a default diagonal stance and a fair amount of shuttles are picked on the backhand. That forehand far back corner is not even in their peripheral vision, and Sen used that blind spot, pinging the shuttles compulsively to Shifeng’s stretched forehand on the flank.
At least 65 percent of Sen’s points in the opening set came from pushes, smashes, drops, loopy lifts and tosses to Shifeng’s far forehand as he took the opening set 21-13.
Shifeng, still smarting from injuries and tentative as was apparent with all that taping on the knee, relies on his monster-smash. And the regal crosscourt expansive smash sure got him a handful of points. The Chinese seventh seed also prevailed in a 65-shot rally to go within two points at 15-13, but Sen was relentless in his geometric incisions.
At most times, Shifeng was torn between wanting to move front to gain initiative yet finding the shuttle fly over his right shoulder, with no control on the rally. In a wicked break from pattern, just when Shifeng began to track back to that fatigued forehand, Sen sent the shuttle straight to Shifeng’s backhand side to take the set 21-13.
It was in the second set when Shifeng got a handle on the territorial net dominance that rallies got longer, and Sen spoke of how that was crucially dealt with.
“Happy with the way I played both sets. But credit to him he played well. Like he played a very solid game with quite some long rallies,” Sen told BWF. The key was in responding to an improved, spirited opponent. “Both of us were getting tired. But happy with how I stuck on there with long rallies. Coach was also saying be extra prepared after long rallies because even he is tired. So don’t give any easy mistakes,” Sen added.
Sen’s reflex defense was also blending splendidly with his midcourt parallel fast parries. Not only does he dive across his body to block and pick shuttles inches off the floor, and jumps back on his feet like a cat, looking like a video on rewind, he also could break the defensive flurries with a tall jumping body smash cratering into the massive Chinese’s ribs. Half a dozen of his points in the second came from tippling the shuttle across the net as the Shifeng lunge went in vain, the bird trapped in the meshing while the Chinese World No 7 tried a desperate lift.
Shifeng, having warmed up by the second set, finally got his net control and the first half of the second set was all about eyeball confrontations on the front court, rallies sizzling at such scorching pace that it was scarcely believable both could go on playing them point after point. And yet they did.
The Chinese, short on confidence though and rattled by the Indian having taken the first set, began ripping out smackdown smashes wildly. Shifeng seemed to have made an inroad in the second, as he caught up from 4-6 down to leading 10-9 and keeping up at 13-15, but he was rushing to set parity, and Sen pounced on those jitters.
The Indian defended like the All England depended on it, and the acrobatics almost became routine. There was a minor concern when in trying to chase down a shuttle behind his shoulder, he seemed to have hurt the back of the knee arching back on landing. But Sen, ranked 12, would get back on his feet not betraying to his opponent that he might be discomfited.
What Sen staying put stubbornly in every rally, behind every shuttle did, was force Shifeng into a frustrated corner, not the literal one. It meant Sen could break away at 16-13 because Shifeng sent 5 of the next 6 points he ceded smashing wildly wide. So desperate was the Chinese to keep the shuttle away from the prancing Sen’s reach within court confines, he needed to go for the lines, had no precision on those line smashes, and wasted all his referrals.
All Sen had to do was keep the shuttle in play, and the Chinese would promptly scatter his big hit like splotched paint. Sen rushed to 19-14, gulped down some water and caught his breath, but never let go of the illusion that he was far from tired. Coaches had alerted him to how he tended to mess up after long rallies. The flying limbs and the inscrutable poker face combined to give Sen a resounding quarterfinal win.
Coach Vimal Kumar lauded the pace that Sen kept up. “Lakshya set a scorching pace from the very beginning, completely unsettling Li Shi Feng. Whenever Li showed a semblance of a comeback — especially during brief phases when Lakshya slowed down — Lakshya quickly raised the tempo again, mixing superb attack with rock-solid defence,” he said.
It was an almighty physical effort too. “His balance between offence and defence was outstanding today. Even after coming through some very tough earlier matches, Lakshya showed no signs of fatigue and maintained his intensity throughout. It was a match of the highest quality, and Lakshya stayed mentally and physically strong to see it through with great authority,” Vimal added.
At least 65 percent of Lakshya Sen's points in the opening set came from pushes, smashes, drops, loopy lifts and tosses to Shifeng's far forehand as he took the opening set 21-13. (Badminton Photo) 
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