Badminton: Focus on fitness, mental strength power Lakshya Sen to Australian Open crown

“Blocked the noise around, heard my inner voice,” he said, thanking his team.

The Super 500 is a low-key result at the fag end of the season, and Sen’s 21-15, 21-11 victory over Japanese Yushi Tanaka on Sunday was rather anti-climatic as he sauntered to the podium in 38 minutes playing safe, composed, no-frills badminton, a day after a 85-minute thriller against Chou Tien Chen. But given Sen’s misses, mistakes and downturns since finishing fourth at the Paris Olympics, even recording a par-performance caps off a year when Olympic Gold Quest chief Viren Rasquinha says, “Lakshya took charge of his own career. He asked for what he needed.”

Lakshya Sen celebrates winning the Sathio Australian Open 2025 (Badminton photo)

Tanaka was error-prone and didn’t need an almighty effort to stub out. “It was important to keep the pressure on him after a good start. I’m happy I could be really calm in the closing stages of the first game,” Sen told Olympic channel later, while also speaking of not allowing the lead to “get inside his head and let me relax.”

That’s Sen-speak for taking the foot off the pedal and blanking out, something he’s notorious for.

One of the things Sen had asked for was a change in his psychologist, and he connected with the professional his brother Chirag had been working with.

Every downer Sen faced in 2025 has a silver lining attached to it. He lost in Round 1 of the World Championships to Shi Yuqi, but the psychologist who travelled to Paris to merely observe how he reacts to situations, began work immediately to draw up mind-protocols.

At the French Open earlier in the year, Sen went down badly to Irish shuttler Nhat Nguyen with an embarrassing scoreline of 21-7. His team recounts how he wasn’t unduly concerned though social media was raining down insults on him.

Reason? His VO2 Max, squat strength and sleep quality parameters had come out satisfactory. The back which was cooked earlier in May at Singapore was not acting up, and they noticed a maturity in how he approached nutrition and recovery.

“Self-realisation about responsibility was coming about, even if results were not showing,” Rasquinha says.

Lakshya Sen in action during the Sathio Australian Open 2025 final. (Badminton Photo)

Attention to detail

Sen has a bad back. So bad that celebrated physiotherapist Heath Matthews had warned him years ago that high intensity in impact training will cost him badly and cause injuries. Forever dreading over-training, Sen carefully goes bonkers in speed, customised agility training, while being on the edge perennially for strength upgrades.

At tournaments, recovery sessions are an event. Non-negotiable and elaborate.

Sen travels with ‘Game-Ready’, a portable contraption plugged into electric sockets, with a dozen attachments to help in post-game recovery of hips, legs and shoulder. Father DK Sen lands at every tournament venue and sets off in search of ice vendors for ice baths.

OGQ recently procured a physio’s bed, an inflatable lightweight soft table for around Rs 1.8 lakh, available only in Finland, for recovery. Earlier, the team lugged 18-20 kg physio beds around the world. Miniscule reduction in excess baggage costs and an Australian Open title are the happy results.

Wearable tech data is Sen’s pastime now, and he ensured his strength and conditioning coach travelled to Red Bull’s athlete assessment facility so he could put suggestions to use on return. Sen’s social media has the ‘Lava’ challenge video where splotches of heat-maps laid out on court, teach him calibrated, imbalanced footwork. At a promotional shoot at a Dharavi-Sion H Block badminton court, he strapped on resistance bands and tried sending the shuttle through circular targets for precision.

His father flipped the whole narrative after Paris.

“He told Lakshya that the medal might’ve slipped away, but all of India’s attention was on him. He said nobody was criticising him, they are all fervently egging him on to win, that people mean positive things. The sense of responsibility, owning his career kicked in soon after,” a member of his team says.