With sharper net play, Lakshya Sen beats Loh Kean Yew to enter semifinals of the French Open

No one in Michael Jackson’s troupe ever thought of practical problems like slipping when there’s blood on the dance-floor. But Lakshya Sen who had a nasty gnash on his right hand finger which refused to stop dripping, and his opponent Loh Kean Yew, two of the bounciest beings on a badminton court, had to mind the droplets before resuming their subsequent dancing on the French Open court.

In the end, Sen made the Paris semifinals defeating Loh 19-21, 21-15, 21-13, making him sweat at the net, at which the Singaporean has never been known to be very adept.

The Indian enters every tour event like it’s a personal knockout round for him — a race to Olympics, given his ranking currently is out of Top 16. He needs deep runs in big tournaments, and is luckily good at shrugging off reputations of opponents. All England defending champion Li Shifeng — Check. 2021 World Champion Loh Kean Yew — Check. Tamed in three. Reputations and repertoire don’t scare Sen, but that Olympic qualification needs to be nailed down.

So, going down 19-21 in the opener could be seen as the pressure weighing down.

In truth, Sen, who won bronze in 2021, has always been many shades better than Loh. He even beat him for the India Open title. Loh relies on a springy, bouncy game that isn’t as speedy or powerful as it was in 2021. In seeking consistency, Loh’s mad speed got cramped somewhere. Sen did offer him lollipop lifts, imminently smashable, because he plays them like he just wants to get rid of the shuttle and continue the rally. So, Loh jumped high and rained down. In one of his routine defensive dives, Sen nicked his finger bad, and suffered a wretched cut. He was a set down.

Coach Vimal Kumar scolded him to get Loh moving. Padukone told him to not worry. His nerves settled down. Sen’s reflex defense is brilliant and his cross smash when not sprayed stays hit. But his best shots are the explosive stride to the net, and the scythe kill in its wake. For some reason against Loh who just doesn’t have the patience or skill for the net, Sen simply didn’t engage him there for longest.

In the second set, he began to. Longer the rally, higher the chances that Sen prevails. And he would soon begin to construct points and tease Loh’s returns out. Because he retrieves everything within court confines, Loh was slowly forced to go for the lines. Sen had of course done the hard work of absorbing his ceaseless hitting which even as sub-par speed is quite fast. But once pulled to the back line, Loh began over-hitting. He would follow it with a grimace, kicking the floor of having missed the line by centimetres. Sen would respond with poker-faced glee — with extra clicks on the round-the-head short smash flurries.

Sen broke free at 10-10 in the second and never stopped with the half smashes and short snappy round-the-heads reaching 19-12 in no time. The sets levelled at 21-15. He also tended to his finger cut, taping it back into place before the decider began.

Sen is a beast in deciders. Mentally the toughest cookie there is in the clutch. He can bin errors into non-existence at the stroke of Set 3 and strike consistency at will. Why he errs in the opener remains a mystery. But his pace, accuracy and chess-work all auto upgrade when he’s chasing Set 3. So he would race to a 4-0 lead.

Using the net far better to force Loh into errors, he reached 8-1. Then came four points for Loh, with no rhyme or reason for why Sen would botch them suddenly. But he would shake off the reverie and begin using the net space to push Loh further out of his depth. At 17-11 was the most frenzied rally of punchy strokes before Sen killed at the net. A body attack for 20-13, and a tap for a win, saw Sen make his first Super 750 semifinals in months.

Sen is an All England finalist from two years ago, so such results ought to be frequent. But his playing style is brutal on the body — with or without blood shedding, and good results will be intermittent till he finds a rally-scrunching attacking weapon.

He runs into the man with the monkish patience, world champion Kunlavut Vitidsarn, the absolute opposite of the restless, frenetic Loh, in the last-4. The Thai is beatable, but won’t offer easy pickings at the net as Loh did. Sen can’t afford to stop diving on the dance floor though.

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