PARIS:The inability to protect and convert handy leads into victories hurt Lakshya Sen for the second consecutive day at the Paris Olympics 2024 badminton competition, here. The Olympic debutant lost the men’s singles bronze medal match against Malaysia’s Jia Zii Lee 21-13, 16-21 and 11-21, at the Porte de La Chapelle Arena, on Monday.
With Sen’s defeat, India’s badminton challenge at these Summer Games also came to an end. Unlike Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020, where PV Sindhu won a silver and bronze, respectively, India will return empty-handed.
On his debut, Sen did well to become the first Indian man to reach the medal round of an Olympics. The best performance by Indian men before Paris 2024 were qualifying for the quarter-finals. Parupalli Kashyap did it in London 2012 and Kidambi Srikanth four years later in Rio. Sen certainly did better.
“It’s disappointing for sure but he played better than me. He (Lee) really came back strong and then the match became very hard fought. I had no answer to some excellent strokes from Lee,” a soft-spoken Sen said in a brief post-match chat with reporters.
The Indian performance at the Paris Olympics has highlighted the fact that accolades won on the Badminton World Federation’s global circuit means nothing at an Olympics.
While expecting a third Olympic medal from Sindhu, on whom the government spent a whopping Rs 3.13 crore, was being over ambitious, the quarter-final exit of former men’s doubles World No. 1 pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty was perhaps the most disappointing. The government spent a lavish Rs 5.62 crore on the talented duo, the winner of several global tournaments and the Asian Games 2022 gold in Hangzhou.
In crunch matches where mental strength is as important as skills, Sen’s propensity to give away easy points proved to be the 22-year-old’s undoing against Viktor Axelsen of Denmark in the semi-finals on Sunday. He repeated that in the bronze-medal match at the Arena’s Centre Court on Monday.
Against defending champion Axelsen, who won the Paris Olympics gold with a fluent 21-11, 2-11 win against Thailand’s Kunlavut Vitidsarn, Sen led 17-11 at one stage in the first game against the World No. 2 and even had three game points against the big Dane. Sen squandered them all and lost 22-20. In the second game too, Sen wasted a solid 7-0 lead and lost the match and a shot at the gold medal.
That profligacy continued against Lee on Monday. Sen’s brilliance with strokes and court coverage was there to see. Even Axelsen sees him as a “future Olympic champion” but experience does matter at this level.
Going into the match against the World No. 7 Malaysian, Sen had a vastly superior 4-1 win-loss record against Lee. He had beaten him twice at the All England, the latest being in June 2024. Sen seemed to carry that momentum here, winning the first game 21-13, displaying an array of attacking and defensive strokes.
For Sen, the cardinal sin of letting your opponent roar back had started in game No. 1 itself. Lee once scored four points in-a row (6-13 to 9-13) but Sen’s healthy lead didn’t suffer any major dent after that since the Malaysian was equally error prone.
Sen grabbed an early lead (8-3) in game No. 2 and then the momentum changed suddenly. Lee caught up with Sen, winning eight points in-a-row and then levelled at 12-12. It was a close contest between the two players who found a lot of support from the crowd. Lee changed gears after 12-12. Some intelligent net play, bodyline smashes and winning rallies gave the mental edge to the Malaysian.
Sen received some medical attention at least thrice in his right elbow. “It was just a bruise. Some blood was coming out and dropping on the court. So I had to put on some bandages,” he explained, adding those small breaks did not impact his concentration at all.
After winning the second game, Lee seemed to be in fluid motion. With amazing dexterity in retrieving the shuttle from impossible corners and then mixing a lot of power in his strokes, the Malaysian outplayed Sen. An early six-point lead (8-2) only got better. At 19-10, Sen looked tired as Lee turned aggressor and sealed the match in 71 minutes.
It was certainly a learning curve for Sen. He agreed mental strength does matter and chasing Olympic dreams and winning an All England match are different. “I shall sit back and analyse so that I can come back stronger next time,” signed off Lakshya Sen.