Lakshya Sen on losing to Viktor Axelsen at Paris Olympics: ‘I was fighting for every point but … this gonna hurt for sometime’

• With Lakshya Sen, it’s never about some streaky ray of hope. When he gets going in a big-stakes match at a big stage with his big booming, pacy game building up big leads, he makes the world look beatable. When he crashes down with a thud, a grandfatherly Bruce Banner coach turns into a Paris-rattling Hulk.

• National coach P Gopichand had reckoned gold was within Sen’s reach the way he put Viktor Axelsen under the pump to start the semis. It was because Sen’s exceptionally sharp reading of the game had dialled up his anticipation, backing the Indian against Thai Kunlavut Vitidsarn, had Sen made Paris Games finals. Sen’s own mentor Prakash Padukone was thoroughly scathing when the shuttler let go of a chance of a bronze medal, a day later, because the two wise men saw wild possibilities of an Indian man achieving the unprecedented, believing him capable. Alternate scenarios play out in their minds, and recurring regrets come with the job of sitting on the chair.

• In the bronze playoff against Lee Zii Jia, Sen was 21-13, 8-3 up, when the Malaysian prone to implosions, pulled a heist on the Indian. The lead, Sen indicates, had been unexpected, and to his eventual dismay, lulling. “In the second game, that side of the court had some drift. Even after the lead, I knew I couldn’t control the shuttle. And then the momentum suddenly changed, and he started playing better. Even when he drew level, I was fighting for every point. But …” he trails off, on what had been a stunning run to the brink of bronze, for a guy ranked 22nd.

  It’s a familiar pattern with Sen, at All England, and against Anders Antonsen and Jonatan Christie, over the course of his career, though he’s nicked wins against both in latest battles. When he’s aggressive and operating at peak pace, he looks stunningly in control. But if the pace drops a tad, and that happens in a blink, there’s a significant drop in his game, where winning a big rally takes a toll on him.

• Against Viktor Axelsen in the semis, 20-17 up, the Dane was on the ropes, hassled and taking forever to serve – a situation where Sen ought to have gone straight to the chair to hurry up the long framed opponent. But as is peculiarly recurrent with Sen, he allowed Axelsen to regroup, with no strong Plan B to drive the knife in, at the all-important endgame. Sen let the senior worm his way right back into the match, waiting for Axelsen to tire out, not quite pushing the attack, while the Dane simply bided his time, and switched gears.

  Sen concedes Axelsen was far too solid towards the end, but also that he botched his chance. “I’m happy that my starting strategy was working well. But in crucial situations I could’ve played differently. I didn’t play well at all in the end, and there were a lot of unforced shots (errors). I needed to be a bit more patient,” he says, though some might argue he got a little too patient, ceding space to the European.