At the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, Sen became the first-ever Indian male badminton player to reach the Olympic semi-finals after winning the quarter-final match against Chou Tien-chen in the men's single event.[6]
Personal life
Born in the Almora district of Uttarakhand, Sen hails from Kumaoni Rajput family. His father, D. K. Sen, is his coach.[7]
Career
Early steps (2009)
Sen was about ten years old when he walked into Vimal Kumar's office at the Karnataka Badminton Association in Bengaluru, stood on his toes to reach the table and gave him a handwritten note. In it, he wrote scoreline details, wanting to join the academy to get better and beat his opponents.[8]
Training and Junior Championships (2016)
Having trained at the Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy, Sen had shown his talent as a badminton player at a very young age.[9] In 2014, he won the Swiss Junior International and had a brilliant year in the junior badminton circuit in 2016.[10]
He clinched the bronze medal at Junior Asian Championship after losing to Sun Feixiang 12–21, 16–21. Coincidently, Sen lost to Sun again in the pre-quarters of Junior World Championship 21–17, 8–21 and 13–21. His team finished 8th in the team event. Sen then competed in the senior international level and won the men's singles title at the 2016 India International Series tournament.
Vietnam Open (2017)
Sen started off at Syed Modi International where he lost in the pre-quarters to compatriot Sourabh Verma 14–21, 16–21. Sen then became the number one junior singles player in BWF World Junior ranking in February 2017.[11] At the Junior Asian Championship, Sen was seeded as No.1 but lost in the pre-quarters to Lin Chun-yi 21–13, 23–25 and 20–22. Sen reached the Quarter-finals of Vietnam Open before losing to Kodai Naraoka 21–17, 21–23 and 10–21. Sen was then seeded as No. 2 at the Junior World Championship but in the Quarter-finals, he lost to Kodai Naraoka 21–14, 17–21, 14–21.
Sen participated at the 2018 Summer Youth Olympics as the fourth seeded. He settled for boys' singles silver medal after losing to Chinese player Li Shifeng in straight games 15–21, 19–21.[13] He also competed in the mixed team event, and helped team Alpha win the gold medal.[14]
Sen won the 2019 Belgian International tournament by beating Victor Svendsen 21–14 and 21–15. Sen clinched his first BWF Tour title by winning the Dutch Open men's singles title after beating Yusuke Onodera of Japan. The Dutch Open is a BWF Tour Super 100 tournament. In November 2019, he won the SaarLorLux Open which is a BWF Tour Super 100 tournament held in Saarbrücken, Germany. He defeated China's Weng Hongyang in the final to claim the title.[15]
He won the men's singles title in the 2019 Scottish Open in November, with a victory against Brazilian Ygor Coelho.[16]
In January, he defeated the reigning world champion Loh Kean Yew in the India Open final, thus clinching his first Super 500 title. He defeated Loh in two straight games 24–22, 21–17.[18] In the German Open, Lakshya defeated World No.1 Viktor Axelsen in the semifinals, but lost the finals to Kunlavut Vitidsarn. He then defeated World No. 3 Anders Antonsen and World No. 7 Lee Zii Jia to reach the finals of the 2022 All England Open.[19] He lost the finals to Viktor Axelsen 10–21, 15–21.[20][21] He subsequently withdrew from the Swiss Open, as he was tired after playing 2 back-to-back BWF tournaments finals.[22] Lakshya Sen was part of the Indian men's team for 2022 Thomas Cup. The team went on to win the Thomas Cup by beating Indonesia 3–0, with Sen winning his match against Anthony Sinisuka Ginting.[23] He became Commonwealth champion at 2022 Commonwealth Games by defeating Ng Tze Yong of Malaysia in the final. Sen was also part of the Indian team that won silver in the mixed team event.[24]
On July 9, Lakshya Sen defeated China's Li Shifeng in straight sets 21-18, 22-20 in the final of 2023 Canada Open in Calgary, Canada.[25] Sen was part of the Indian team which won a silver medal in the men's team event at 2022 Asian games.[26]
Paris Olympics (2024)
In the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, Sen became the first Indian to advance to the semifinals of the Men’s singles badminton tournament.[27] The unseeded Sen beat the 12th-seeded, Chinese Taipei's Chou Tien-chen 19-21, 21-15, 21-12 in the Olympic quarterfinals.[28] Sen, however, lost 20-22, 14-21 to World No. 2 Danish shuttler Viktor Axelsen in the semifinals.[29][30] During the bronze medal match, he lost to Malaysia's Lee Zii Jia 21-13, 16-21, 10-21, thus finishing his campaign at the fourth position. His right hand injury worked as a hindrance.[31]
The BWF World Tour, which was announced on 19 March 2017 and implemented in 2018, is a series of elite badminton tournaments sanctioned by the BWF aka Badminton World Federation.[32] The World Tour is divided into levels of World Tour Finals, Super–1000, Super–750, Super–500, Super–300, and the BWF Tour Super–100.[33]
^Sukumar, Dev (10 January 2018). "Action-Packed Season Ahead!". Badminton World Federation. Archived from the original on 13 January 2018. Retrieved 15 January 2018.
