How Lakshya Sen gauged chilly conditions in stadium and calibrated his game to demolish Ayush Shetty

Lakshya Sen in action at the India Open 750 badminton tournament. (Express Photo by Abhinav Saha)

At the halfway stage of the second game, the exchanges between Lakshya Sen and Ayush Shetty felt like a battle of equals. Lakshya was nailing his net game and round-the-head crosscourt smashes, Ayush was using his big reach to extend rallies and pulled out his towering smashes too. It didn’t quite pan out to be the blockbuster that was anticipated as Lakshya’s level was much higher and more consistent for the remaining match. The Paris Olympics semifinalist continued his winning streak against the rising star of Indian badminton, prevailing 21-12 21-15 in 36 minutes in the opening round of the India Open Super 750.

“On his day, he feels invincible, I would say,” Ayush said after the match. It is a statement that sums up the good and bad of Lakshya. When he is playing the way he did against Ayush on Tuesday, he is a joy to watch and a nightmare to play against. But it also needs to be his day, and those can come and go. “He has a very good defence. His attacks are really good. He has a lot of variations, and yeah, He’s a really fast player as well.”

On a day many players spoke about how difficult it was to warm up in the chilly interiors of IG Indoor Stadium, Lakshya came out firing. “It’s pretty cold in Delhi, so it was important to get the body warm, so really happy with the way I warmed up,” the former champion at this event said with a chuckle. While Lakshya said he found the conditions tricky too – like expecting the shuttle to travel slower in the bigger arena but it turned out to be rather fast with sideways drift – he was quicker to adapt and was off to a 7-1 lead. The unmistakable feature of his early lead was how well Lakshya was controlling the net. The deft dribbles and tight crosscourt shots on either flank were leaving Ayush constantly on the backfoot, reacting late to the danger.

“I had a pretty bad start and I think Lakshya was really controlling the shuttle very well. The shuttles are really fast today compared to yesterday. (in training) I gave a very big lead in the beginning. Definitely, he was controlling the net really well and I was never really dominating there, and I think that made the difference,” Ayush explained.

When Lakshya took his foot off the pedal for the first time, Ayush reeled off six straight points from 6-17. It was too late to matter in the scheme of things in the opening game but augured well for a closer contest in the second.

Ayush said that the momentum swung decisively in favour of Lakshya once he caught up after the mid-game interval and moved ahead, which increased the scoreboard pressure on the youngster. That’s when Lakshya pushed the pace higher and stretched Ayush’s defence. The crosscourt smashes from Lakshya towards Ayush’s backhand flank started to cause some serious damage as the latter was repeatedly floored while trying to dive and retrieve.

The speed that Ayush spoke was evident on a few occasions where Lakshya pounced with a forward charge the moment he sensed a loose shuttle from the other side of the net. “There was a little bit of wind from both sides, so in the second game it took me some time to get adjusted to that because it was a little bit faster and then again, he also started playing really well in the second half, which made the match closer. It was important to be very quick on the feet, because the shuttle was travelling a bit faster, which is why I was trying to be very aggressive on the points,” Lakshya said.

Despite the mitigating conditions of drift, playing at the India Open for the first time, and coming up against tuned-in Lakshya, Ayush wasn’t looking for excuses. “Definitely not the start I would want (for the year). Really disappointed in the performance as I wanted to do very well in my first India Open, but I’ll have one more chance at the World Championships (in Delhi at the same venue in August),” Ayush said.

For Lakshya, it is yet another all-Indian hurdle overcome in the initial rounds at the India Open. Having finished 2025 strongly, he’ll hope to make a deep run in Delhi. It doesn’t get easier, however, as he faces Kenta Nishimoto next. The World No 13 from Japan has won the last two matches against Lakshya, both three-game battles that went beyond 70 minutes. Nishimoto tends to frustrate a lot of Indian matters with his sheer doggedness to keep the shuttle alive. Lakshya would need to be dialled-in from the start, again.