It was a match Lakshya Sen was not expected to feature in to begin with. Pulling off upsets along the way against older, higher-ranked players at the senior badminton national championships in Patna, the 15-year-old came up short against 2011 champion Sourabh Verma in the final on Tuesday.
Just last week, Lakshya, who is supported by non-profit organization Olympic Gold Quest, became only the third Indian player, after Aditya Joshi and Siril Verma, to capture the top spot in the world junior rankings. Verma, who won 21-13, 21-12 in the final, was clearly the better player on the day, after having drawn Lakshya into long, frustrating rallies to upend his patience. While a win would have certainly been a crucial milestone in Lakshya's career, his emergence as a veritable name in Indian badminton can't be glossed over.
"He was outclassed today," Vimal Kumar, who has been training Lakshya at the Prakash Padukone academy in Bangalore over the last six years, said after the match.
"He made some errors to the back of the court and Sourabh played quite tight at the net. Lakshya is alright when drawn into attacking play but needs to develop more patience when his opponent rallies. That said he's quite young and has done a good job of making it so far. "
Padukone, who has been closely tracking Lakshya's progress and offering him personalised attention, recently told ESPN that he sees shades of his young self in the current junior world No. 1 player.
"He's a naturally gifted player," Padukone had said. "And the focus is to help him develop tactically." At 5'10, Lakshya is quite tall for his age and is likely to gain a couple more inches over the next two years. Though Vimal, who also coaches Saina Nehwal, doesn't count a change in Lakshya's physical build as having a major bearing on his game, he points out that it's an aspect which can't be wholly ignored.
"Two years ago, for instance, Lakshya was a lot smaller in size. Training and other aspects have to be geared towards a possible change in physicality because that factor needs to be taken into consideration. The idea is to not push him too much which will in turn make him injury-prone," Vimal said.
After conceding the first game in Tuesday's final, Lakshya seemed out of sorts falling behind quickly 2-8 in the second. Protracted rallies had sapped him of his will and focus. Though he saved a match point for 12-20, that was pretty much the final shred of resistance he could offer.
Among a host of impressive qualities, Vimal is prompt to list a striking few which set him apart from peers in the academy.
"He's very sincere and disciplined and follows what he's told with a lot of conviction. He's also calm and able to cope with tough situations, which isn't an easy trait to have at his age and his ability to grasp selection of strokes and bring in variations depending on the demand of the situation is quite good." Padukone's plan for Lakshya, Vimal says, is to pick tournaments judiciously and not allow him to fall into the trap of playing throughot the year just to gain ranking points.
The son of a SAI badminton coach, Lakshya won bronze in the Asian Juniors in July last year besides also winning the Wimbledon U-19 tournament and the Swiss Open junior tournament in 2014.
"We've had some very promising juniors in Aditya and Pratul Joshi, who were shaping really well before they somewhere lost their way. When you begin to succeed you're short on patience and pressurised to do different things which often backfires," Vimal explained.
"Lakshya's father is also a coach so there's a greater understanding. It's only when the player has belief in his coach that results begin to show." An interesting facet of Lakshya's game is his ability to play both defensive and offensive styles so as not to be compartmentalised into either. He also has a good smash that he often mixes up well with the half-smash, using it to good effect against the attacking play of HS Prannoy to make the quarterfinal.
In the semifinal against Mumbai's Harsheel Dani, Lakshya switched to defensive mode, leaving his opponent, who made the semifinals of the Syed Modi GP Gold last week, with little room to unleash his shots.
In November last year, Lakshya won his first senior international title in Hyderabad beating Malaysia's Zii Jia Lee for his second major tournament win in two months, the previous being the All India Senior ranking badminton tournament in Itanagar.
"He has made a good beginning and shown promise, beating some international players who're older than him," Vimal said. "We have a separate trainer and physio for him because at his age he needs attention particularly with regard to his strength and to rein in any possibility of overdoing practice or training." Travelling to South East Asian traditional badminton powerhouses - Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand - and sparring with their players is also reaping rich dividends for the young Indian.
Apart from being exposed to varied styles of play, the experience has also offered Lakshya a greater measure of confidence.
"When he was 13 we sent him to Europe and he won the U-19 Wimbledon title and a couple of other tournaments," Vimal said. "But playing too many events began to take a toll on him and he started suffering from back pains.
"So we've gradually cut down on his on-court training and are focusing more building his strength. Some days we schedule only gym and training for him and no on-court sessions. His food habits also need to be more planned." Occasional sparring sessions with Saina at the academy too have come in handy. "Till two years ago Saina used to beat him, but now it's pretty much the other way round."