At the Paris Olympics in August, Lakshya Sen was the best performing Indian badminton player reaching the bronze medal match and finishing an agonising fourth. That run, which saw him beat three higher-ranked players and come close to a medal, elevated him in the national sporting consciousness as a future champion (a thought reasserted by eventual gold medallist Viktor Axelsen).
Three months later, Lakshya is struggling to put together a win. In his latest outing at the Japan Masters on Wednesday, the Indian world no. 17 went down to world no. 31 Leong Jun Hao 22-20, 17-21, 16-21 in a match that lasted 75 minutes and saw Lakshya gain the upper hand multiple times only to squander it away. had a hard-fought, one game lead against an opponent who he has a 3-1 record against, and then a 10-6 advantage in the decider, but he just couldn't close it out.
In isolation, this result after a month-long break doesn't look as bad. But the fact that Lakshya has yet to win a match after the Olympics is bordering on cause of concern.
He took a break of two months after the Olympic heartbreaks, recovering and then working on his fitness at the Red Bull Athlete Performance Centre in Salzburg before returning for the European in October. He had opening round walkover at the Arctic Open Super 500 but then lost to lost to Chou Tien Chen from a game up, the same opponent he'd beaten to reach the Olympic semis playing one of his career's best matches. The following week he lost his opener to Lu Guang Zu at the Denmark Open Super 750, once again from a game up.
Now, a month and another training block later, Lakshya finds himself back at the three-game loss threshold. In none of these matches, can one say that he was playing badly or was not in with a chance. It's this losing from advantageous positions that's become a worry for the 23-year-old.
On Wednesday against Leong, Lakshya was all quick feet and swift rallies, playing a very good level of badminton and showing little sign of having been away from the court. After a slightly slower start, he got into his pace and neither player could hold on to serve till 12-12. It's then that the Malaysian built a run of points and the Indian's focus jangled. There were multiple failed smashed and avoidable errors. But the way he clinched the first game from 18-20 down to 22-20 was classic Lakshya, making the runs, erasing the deficit and getting the points.
In the second game, the Indian had to catch up and erase the deficit several times, but every time Leong pulled ahead, Lakshya was able to stay close. Until he made on too many errors on judgment calls. The Malaysian managed to punch in a number of winners on open court, not an easy feat against a Lakshya's quality defence but that's where his lapses showed.
In the decider though, it was Lakshya who was setting the pace again and staying ahead till the mid point. But the final change of ends, after more than an hour of play, it was Lakshya who plateaued, and Leong's relentless pressure -- the precise touch finding the lines and quick movement to match -- prevailed.
Two things sorely stood out in his match for Lakshya -- the spate of errors while he tried to shift to a more attacking mode and the soft points he conceded after defending for his life in hard rallies. The smashes that fell just wide, the errors at the net when going for the kill, the last shot in a long rally when he ran all over court, it all piled up and made him stumble. As mentioned in our preview, while there is no doubt that Lakshya can challenge the best, his mental blocks seem to have become an even bigger issue after the fourth-place finish in Paris.
This is certainly not the first time it happened and Lakshya has overcome this successfully is the past, most strikingly at the start of the year when he went on a big run to qualify for the Olympics after seven straight first-round exits on tour. What he then did in Paris was even more memorable. He just needs to tap into that level of confidence and get that habit of winning again. The only way to do it to win a close match and the only one who can do it is Lakshya, as his childhood coach Vimal Kumar had notably said earlier this year.
He still has a chance to do that, next week at the Super 750 in China which will end the top-tier tournaments for 2024, and then the Syed Modi Super 300 back home. And he will hope to do that to finish off the season on a positive note. For now, Lakshya's breakthrough Olympic season looks to be bookended by two confidence-crisis slumps.