First Lakshya Sen, and then Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, decided they wouldn’t wait for things to happen. Fame, stardom and medals had brought on immense pressure on the established stars of the sport. Injuries had made all three circumspect.
Battling Chinese Taipei in the quarterfinals, India’s senior stars stood up to be counted, and led the country to its second Thomas Cup medal in five years, making the semis with a 3-0 win.
Sen was up against Chou Tien Chen, whose accurate smashing and controlled pace suffocates opponents. Till well into the second game, the Taiwanese kept Sen under the pump.
The Indian described his opponent: “You come prepared that the first game won’t be easy. In closing stages, he will up the gear. He will go for smashes, put mental pressure on you. You just have to fight till the end, even 15-all, 16-all, you got to give that extra 5 percent in the end.”
And so it was that after losing the first, Sen found himself staring at 21-18, 20-18, two match points down.
His bounce back from that juncture was the fight that ignited an entire squad – Ayush Shetty sitting in the dugout, watching, and Chirag, mid-warmup.
“We went to the place where we assemble before the match to see him winning from 18-20 to 22-20. The way he celebrated, I also celebrated the same way standing there. He charged us up. When we went on court, we really wanted to win that doubles point,” Chirag would say.
What Sen needed was to lure Tien Chen into longish rallies, move him around given he looked exhausted, and play his shots. These were tense, taut rallies, where Sen didn’t shy away from net battles.
Something snapped at 18-20. It took Sen all the way to a 18-21, 22-20, 21-17 win, to put India 1-0 ahead.
“In the first, I was checking if I could attack or defend. In the second and third, I took the approach of not waiting for things to happen. Attack a bit more. Be proactive, especially in the closing stages,” Sen told BWF.
The doubts needed drowning.
“A team event is a different kind of pressure. I started thinking too much. But the coach told me ‘You are not looking too confident. Stop thinking too much and just play.’ I tried to do that,” he would say.
Inspired performance
A similar switch would get turned on, for Satwik-Chirag trailing 18-20 in the first game against Olympic champion Wang Chi Lin, paired with Chiu Hsiang Chieh.
For a while now, daunted by injuries, fear of recurrence, and scarred by failure to win titles, Satwik-Chirag had been tiptoeing. Their improved defence, counter-intuitively made things worse, because they started thinking they could rely on it, and deferring attack. This year, multiple coaches have reminded them that no matter how sturdy it gets, defence ain’t their weapon; attack is.
The thought kicked in at 17-19 down, Satwik told BWF.
“At 19-17, we decided to play full court, open up the court, and said let’s see how it goes.”
It was them taking the initiative and not waiting for the opponents’ mistakes. The strategy was in place, they just needed to stay calm. Controlling the length and denying the Taiwanese height to hit, the Indians went on the attack themselves, liberating themselves from being dictated. The nervous energy was reined in, tamed and used to explode as they would go on to win 23-21, 19-21, 21-12.
Satwik joked he could’ve gone on to a fourth game, given the adrenaline. “In a team event, you really don’t know. Boys are pumping up all the time. You want to play all out. The rush is so high. After 30 minutes, you get to know where you have niggles,” he said.
The career-defining Thomas Cup title from 2022 had made anything less than a final seem underwhelming. The core of the group, backed up by Ayush, were back to relive that happiness again. India are in the semifinal. Feeling not invincible exactly, but looking forward to the battle.
Lakshya Sen and Satwik-Chirag in action against the Chinese Taipei. (Badminton Photo) 
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