No medal at Paris Olympics: Where does loss leave Lakshya Sen and Indian badminton?

Winning a badminton Olympic medal requires reaching the 21st point of the final set played in a bronze playoff. To put it in the most blasé fashion, Lakshya Sen fell 10 points short of that in his 21-13, 16-21, 11-21 loss to Lee Zii Jia, and took 72 minutes, the longest amongst Paris shuttlers, to lose a medal.

Lakshya Sen played more matches than anyone else in Paris, and was on court the longest this last week, but will sign off from Paris with an enhanced stature, but a 4th place finish, amounting to nothing in the all-important medals column.

It will hurt, for this is also India’s first Olympics in 12 years without a badminton medal. But Prakash Padukone and Vimal Kumar, will have a few things to say in a debrief, bluntly, before Lakshya Sen moves on from this. You could be the brightest prodigy from your country, have scalped the biggest names at the Games early, played an extraordinary valiant match against the eventual gold medallist and impressed the whole world, but Lakshya Sen needed to beat Zii Jia for a bronze, and he floundered.

Indian men’s badminton remains medal-less, and Lakshya Sen’s absolute effort in a gutting result showed just how tough it is to nail down, and why the biggest names from Pullela Gopichand to Kidambi Srikanth, and now Lakshya Sen, haven’t managed to do it. Lakshya Sen’s falling apart on two consecutive days, increases appreciation for PV Sindhu and Saina Nehwal, who got the job done in similarly difficult fields.

Lakshya Sen started tremendously on Monday, before the blues struck. But he’s been finishing poorly all through the qualification period, and his game, however spectacular it looks, remains incomplete. He was error-free in the opening set, hammering those cross courts, and finding the back lines, till the famously fragile Malaysian began finding his own radar on the back lifts. Lakshya Sen had a Plan B on the day. He charged the net imperiously with his explosive stride and led from start to finish going from 14-9 to 21-13. So far, so good.

The Malaysian who carries hopes of an entire nation, a badminton obsessed nation, in men’s singles, where they have three silvers, is not merely ordinary. He was 1-4 against Lakshya Sen going into this playoff, but he boasts of an extraordinary attack in his steep smashing game, dependable control on the backhand at the net, and endless points to prove to those he’s bickered back home with. A former All England champion, he knew to pounce on Sen at the first hint of the Indian lapsing.

India’s Lakshya Sen during the Men’s Singles Semifinal badminton match against Denmark’s Viktor Axelsen at the 2024 Summer Olympics, in Paris, France, Sunday, Aug. 4, 2024. (PTI Photo/Ravi Choudhary)

Lakshya Sen led the second 8-3. He was finding ridiculous angles on the cross, furious on the net kills, when Zii Jia started pinging him with body smashes at 8-6. Sen’s errors suddenly started piling up, and a large part of it was down to the lifts. His inadvertent and deliberate lifts just didn’t go high and deep enough, and were easiest put-downs for Zii Jia on his forehand at the midcourt. Sen criminally flick-served and whatever little circumspection the Malaysian had on his radar was cured in a jiffy.

From 8-3 up, Lakshya Sen went into a shell, ceding 8 straight points. In a clump. Zii Jia leveled at 12-12 and raced away to take the set 21-16.

Lakshya Sen took a bunch of medical timeouts to tend to an elbow bleed. But all the bandaging was only tampering his own focus, as his poise came undone in the decider. Sen’s defense can seem outrageously good, but like Axelsen, Zii Jia has a big attack that can rumble deep, kicking out the doors.

The Malaysian took the lead at 7-2 in the decider. But the next rally showed how badly he wanted this medal. He slipped and stumbled and was on all fours on all axis, barely hanging in three different ways. But he stuck it out there to win a humongous rally.

Next, Lakshya Sen showed indecision (and tiredness) on the backline twice, letting the shuttle fall in. It was the start of the decline. His usually reliable net tumble cost him points as Zii Jia grew in confidence, and his weak lifts did him no good. It was passivity all over again just like against Axelsen as he watched the match and the bronze slip by. It wasn’t even the crunch. He was a good 10 points adrift.

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