New Delhi: With five titles under his belt, Lakshya Sen was racing towards the top echelons of international badminton. However, his stunning run was halted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The deadly virus has brought all competitive actions to a halt across the world.
Progress affected
Lakshya is enduring uncertain times within the confines of his apartment, near the Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy (PPBA) in Bangalore.
“I was looking forward to play big tournaments, compete against better players and try to make it to top 15 this year. But then everything stopped suddenly, all tournaments suspended. Now I don’t know when they will resume,” Lakshya said Monday. The shuttler had zoomed to No.32 in the world last year. After winning five titles he had zoomed to 27th in the world rankings.
Lakshya was looking forward to the Swiss Open (March 17-22) but All England turned out to be the last tournament. After that the Badminton World Federation (BWF) suspended all action. In fact, Lakshya was in the middle of the tournament when government’s travel restrictions came into force.
“I had a match to play (second round) when the Ministry had announced travel restrictions. I didn’t think much about it but by the time I had played my match, BWF had cancelled the tournaments. “So, we booked tickets and returned,” said the soft-spoken shuttler.
Lakhsya has been at home since returning to the country and has his family with him. He has got the company of his mother, his brother Chirag Sen, who is also an international shuttler. Then there is dad DK Sen, who has been coaching at the PPBA. Earlier the seniormost Sen used to work for SAI, but took voluntary retirement a couple of years back.
Training schedule
In a bid to retain the fun of playing the sport, the Sen family decided to clear out an area in the drawing room.
“I believe something is better than nothing. So we removed the dining table and other furniture in the drawing room to create some space. Then we can play, also they (sons) can have a feel of the racquet in hand,” the senior Sen said. “Sometimes they work on net play, or just work on service,” he added.
With courts out of bound, Lakshya and Chirag are also trying to keep themselves fit. “We train for sometime in the morning and evening. We do exercises like skipping, body weight, core workout and agility training. We are given weekly schedule from the academy,” Lakshya informed.
“Rest of the time, we watch movies and play games on play-station. I do feel restless a bit because there is not much we can do but training helps,” added Lakshya.
Agencies