Lakshya Sen

[jaydeep]

Also good to see a legendary Morten Frost was on his corner.

[depleter]

Also good to see a legendary Martin Frost was on his corner.

He was sitting in coach's corner all through out the tournament.
Lakhsya Sen's next tournament is another super 100 tourney in germany at the end of the month. Looks like he is only looking at playing in Europe while training with frost.

[Sin Hombre]

Think that is the case, remember reading something on the likes of Morten Frost coaching him for 3 months during his European sojourns.

[jayakris]

I thought Frost had signed up with the Padukone Academy a few months ago, for a one-year coaching stint. Lakshya Sen may have been a big reason for that too. This is great for Lakshya.

[arjun2761]

Nice win by Lakshya Sen! He is still only 18, so remains our top prospect right now. This result should move him inside the top 55 in world rankings and hopefully he can work his way into the top 30 over the next year.

[sameerph]

Laskhya has now reached 52 in world rankings. There is no player younger who is ranked higher than him. 2 players who were his junior compatriots - Thai Kunlavut Vitidsarn and Chinese Li Shi Feng are ranked slightly higher than him 48 and 51 but they are both few months older than him but it will be interesting to see how 3 of these progress in the next few months.

[sameerph]

This is an excellent article on Lakshya in Sony ESPN-

Lakshya Sen levels up in Denmark amid new coach and household chores

Frost's plan for Lakshya has been one of carefully constructing rallies instead of riding on the one-off winners. He has also set a top-50 year-end ranking goal.
The Uttarakhand-born teenager hasn't disappointed. With four tournaments - Saarlorlux Open Super 100, Irish Open, Scottish Open and Syed Modi Super 300 - left on his calendar before he can call it a year, Frost punts Lakshya exceeding his goal by roughly ten spots.

It will be great if he can exceed that get close to top 30 by year end. Than, he can possibly try to make a big move to top 16 before June 19 to get into Tokyo olympics, although he will need a lot of good results in big tournaments next year to achieve that.

[sameerph]

Just to update this thread, Lakshya won his second consecutive super 100 tournament in Germany last week and he has now moved up to a career high of 42 in singles rankings. One of the 3 teenagers in top 50 - fellow 18 year old 3 times junior world champion Thai Kunlavut Vitidsarn is ranked 40 now and 19 year Chinese Li Shi Feng is ranked 49.

It is a week's break for Laskhya but after that as per his earlier schedule, he is going to play 3 consecutive tournaments- Irish open and Scottish Open international challenge events and then Syed Modi BWF super 300 tournament. Probably he may now play only 1 of the 2 international challenge tournaments and give it his all at Syed Modi international where he can earn a lot of points if he goes deep.

[sameerph]

It is a week's break for Laskhya but after that as per his earlier schedule, he is going to play 3 consecutive tournaments- Irish open and Scottish Open international challenge events and then Syed Modi BWF super 300 tournament. Probably he may now play only 1 of the 2 international challenge tournaments and give it his all at Syed Modi international where he can earn a lot of points if he goes deep.

Last week at Irish open, Lakshya lost in second round to young talented French player Christo Popov.

This week at Scottish open though Lakshya came up against Popov in the SF and beat him 22-20 in the third game. He will be up against Brazilian 58th ranked Yogr Koelho.

[sameerph]

Lakshya wins Scottish international challenge title beating Ygor Koelho 18-21 21-18 21-19 in the final.

His fourth title in last 2 months in Europe. Looking at his game as of now he looks a little far from top 20 level. But his temparment looks really good and he has the determination to win at any cost. This will prove to be critical when his,game moves up a notch hopefully soon.

[jaydeep]

Yes, yesterday also he made a lot of unforced errors but kept fighting to win the title ... Also with this, his 3 months training stint with Morten Forst gets over.

[jaydeep]

Lakshya needs to play higher level tournaments... He has achieved his current ranking playing these lower-level $25K tournaments ... Currently, he is dominating these tournaments as he won his 5th $25K tournament in the last 10 weeks.

At $25K YONEX SUNRISE Bangladesh International Challenge 2019, Dhaka (International Challenge)

[R1] (1) Lakshya Sen (IND,41) bt Rajesh Verma (IND,UNR) 21-5, 21-10
[R2] (1) Lakshya Sen (IND,41) bt Muhammad Ziyad Md Tah (MAS,324) 21-13, 21-6
[R3] (1) Lakshya Sen (IND,41) bt Aidil Sholeh Ali Sadikin (MAS,154) 21-17, 21-9
[QF] (1) Lakshya Sen (IND,41) bt NG Tze Yong (MAS,156) 21-9, 21-11
[SF] (1) Lakshya Sen (IND,41) bt (3) Ikhsan Leonardo Imanuel Rumbay (INA,82) 21-18, 21-16

Singles Final
(1) Lakshya Sen (IND,41) bt Jun Hao Leong (MAS,239) 22-20, 21-18

[PKBasu]

Yes, it is pointless playing tournaments where you are the top seed and dominate from start to finish. He faced a challenge in SF against the only top-100 player he played. And the final against a very low-ranked player was unnecessarily close.

[sameerph]

Yes, it is pointless playing tournaments where you are the top seed and dominate from start to finish. He faced a challenge in SF against the only top-100 player he played. And the final against a very low-ranked player was unnecessarily close.

That low-ranked Malaysian beat Japanese Kodai Naroka in the SF. Naraoka was one of Lakshya's strongest competitors in junior circuit and has beaten him several times and is ranked #45 in the world right now. So, this Malaysian may be someone who is ranked that low only because he has not played much due to injury or whatever other reason.

I think main objective of Laskshya playing these tournaments is to improve his rankings and he has made a big jump to #32 now. I think this will now allow him to play bigger tournaments early next year. If he can do well there, he has an outside chance of making to top 16 by cut-off date and make to to Tokyo olympics.

[sameerph]

18 year old Lakshya is now ranked at a career high ranking of 27. No player younger than him is ranked higher. Fellow 18 year old Kunlavut is ranked just below at 29.

None of the Indian players who have been ranked in top 10 recently like Shrikanth , Praneeth and Prannoy were ranked even in top 50 at this age.So, if career progression follows on right path we are looking at a future top 5 player which we have not seen meds side except Srikanth for a brief period.