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Journalism of Courage
Lakshya Sen has entered the age bracket, 25+, that is considered peak years for Indian mens singles shuttlers. Kidambi Srikanth, Pullela Gopichand and Prakash Padukone all had their highest highs from 25-28. And while only a LA Olympics ’28 medal can mend the broken heart from Paris ’24 for Sen, the next two seasons might prove decisive in ascertaining his place in the legacy of Indian badminton.
The Asian Games gold, the All England and a second World Championship medal all remain India’s elusive goals in men’s singles for 2026. But in the ’25 season, Sen has seen his fortunes plummet, when what you would expect is an angry charge at every title, trying to make a point after the Paris miss. At Australia on Sunday, he awaits his first title of 2025, but only his closest team perhaps understand how difficult this year has been, in regrouping and starting all over again.
Make no mistake, Sen is still rated very high by every top coach, and his peers on the circuit. A dangerous floater who has the smarts to out-think any opponent, if he feels his fitness is fine. And that’s where the dissonance between expectations of him, and the reality of his fitness, starts. Because his good days are so good – like this week at Sydney – it becomes very difficult to understand how the bad days, the first roundhouse, the narrow defeats, end up looking so bad.
It’s a trend India will need to get used to. Consistency, like Chou Tien Chen or Anders Antonsen display, big occasion sturdiness like Kunlavut Vitidsarn has showcased, smooth dominance that Viktor Axelsen or Shi Yuqi signify or abrupt indestructibility that Li Shifeng, Lee Zii Jia or Loh Kean Yew are capable of summoning, is just something Sen will never be capable of.
Every win or good week will be laborious, effort-full. Every high will be bookended by months in the oblivion, spent silently tending to niggles or flare-ups and strengthening a patched-up back or a randomly acting up ankle. Sen’s playing style puts extraordinary pressure on his spine, and even if he trains to the upper limit and deploys the greatest recovery methods, there will be a threshold to his top-level performance in badminton’s notorious back-to-back week schedule.
Those defeats you think are him playing disinterestedly or losing inexplicably to a World No 35, are actually Sen walking the tightrope of complying with mandatory number of tournaments and managing a bad back that needs the ‘long stop – short start’ rhythm, to just stay intact. A Vietnamese-Irish makes for great coffee 1-2, but ought not to have thrown up a result like the torrid 21-16, 21-7 loss at French Open for Sen, a week after he’d beaten Irishman Nhat Nguyen at Denmark. But India will need to get used to Sen popping high up and plunging low in his results – a bit like his elbowflex rubberband high smashes (that preserve his shoulder) and many low pick-ups style of play.
Sen plays sensational defense. It looks very dazzling in all its speedy, smart glory. It also extracts a lot out of him, and the back torque when he dives, lunges has painful post-scripts of icebath recoveries.
Sen is blessed with exquisite reflexes, and has taught himself to dive this way and that, and return to standing, scurrying position in a jiffy. Those are gymnastics level court moves, he’s pulling off, no doubt after training for the acrobatics to move without breaking something. But that sort of a retrieving game punishes daily.
Not only does Sen need to pick and choose when he will go all-out, he will need to manage the match-ups by rationing effort, so that he’s not spent by the time he arrives at a final. Not for him the ‘let’s see who shows up deep into the draw.’ He will need to ace peaking on Sundays, and 4 brutal ladders to the final.
Biomechanically, Sen with his coaching team, have been arriving at the most optimum shot selections and efficient ways to wrap up a rally. The fear always is that he will over-train to compensate for the power-hit he lacks, knowing he can’t summon it as easily as some others. But there is consensus that Sen’s might be the most complicated balance between gym-work and court training to achieve, with how his back is.
His endgame in the first set can still do with some mental bolstering and tactical precision, because as entertaining as those fightbacks and deciders are, for those watching, they are brutal on his body. Lakshya Sen will give it his all if he’s decided he can fight. But he can’t afford a week full of three setters, without the exertion affecting his finals.
Spine health is tied in acutely with general health even in post-badminton years. So, being cautious goes beyond the next few years. Lakshya Sen will have to be trusted to decide when he goes all-out and when he quietly regroups while the stream of losses look bad. The season-ending World Tour Finals reward consistency, and India’s best men’s singles player has not made it. Bad news – It’s just how things are going to be. Good news – Sen has made peace with it.
