Lakshya Sen is an Indian badminton player who chiefly competes in the singles category. Sen was born in Uttarakhand’s city of Almora in a badminton family. Sen first came to prominence in 2016, when he had a successful junior badminton circuit. The following year, he became the No.1 in the BWF World Junior ranking. Lakshya clinched that feat in 2018 when he became the champion at the 2018 Asian Junior Championships after defeating the top-seeded World No. 1 Kunlavut Vitidsarn in the final. Sen has time and again, demonstrated sparks that he could be India’s next World No. 1 after Prakash Padukone and Pullela Gopichand. He won the gold medal in the final of men’s single at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games, in 2022.
| Full Name | Lakshya Sen |
| Handedness | Right |
| Hometown | Almora, Uttarakhand |
| Height | 5 ft 10 in (1.79 m) |
| Age | 21 years |
| World Ranking (Current) | 8 (as of October 2022) |
| Career Wins | 214 wins, 82 losses |
| Coach | Prakash Padukone Vimal Kumar -- Advertisement -- DK Sen Yoo Yong-sung |
Biography
Early Beginnings
Lakshya Sen always had the ‘shuttler genes’ in his blood. His father, Mr. D K Sen, is a national coach whereas his brother, Chirag Sen, is a renowned international badminton player. Lakshya was always intrigued by the sport that his father and sibling already played so much. As a result, whenever his father would take Chirag to the Union Bank Sub-Junior tournament, the youngest of the Sen member would convince him to accompany him.
The aspiring young shuttlers swear by the competition since it is a platform where Vimal Kumar, director at the Prakash Padukone Academy, scouts his next pupils.
Chirag won the U-13 title with relative ease, boosting his chances of admission to one of India’s most revered badminton academies. Watching his brother play, Lakshya got seriously inspired. Before he knew it, he straightaway asked Vimal if he could play at the academy too.
A bemused Vimal gave the youngster, who had not even aged in double digits, a chance to prove himself in the form of a trial.
What impressed Vimal and Prakash Padukone about the gritty youngster was how he took winning in badminton seriously. In a recent interview, Kumar revealed how Sen used to cry after even a single defeat.
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Success
He was instantly picked by the coaches along with Chirag. After coming under the aegis of the Prakash Padukone Academy, the youngster’s badminton journey took off instantly.
Over the next 6 years, Sen won the U-13, U-17, and U-19 National tournaments among other international competitions in the same age group comfortably. What was surprising was that he was just aged 15 when he achieved the U-19 National Medal. The hopes were high. Performing well in the Juniors is a daunting task, considering age-cheating is so rampant in the country. But nothing could hold the young Lakshya back, who, as his name goes, was ‘focussed’ on his target.
As he spent more time at the academy, his game began to evolve and he started to develop new skills. Gone was the boy who would cry vehemently after every defeat. Lakshya became more mature and calm. Playing at Padukone’s academy did give Sen some of his mentor’s traits. For starters, he is strong at the nets from where he controls the proceedings pretty well, just like Prakash in his playing days. Although, he has many unique traits. For example, he has a decent hit, a property that was not as evident in Prakash. He uses immense smashing power to take his opponent by surprise.
Get to know me a little better 😃 pic.twitter.com/BQUti11aow
— Lakshya Sen (@lakshya_sen) September 29, 2022
Also, having grown up in the hilly terrains of the mighty Himalayas, Lakshya has been bestowed with the gift of strong legs and bellow-like lungs. (Almora, the city where he was born and grew up is over 5,000 feet above sea level.) As a result, he has developed speed and stamina that allows him to slog for extensive hours without showing even a hint of fatigue.
2016
2016 was a brilliant year for the youngster. He first won the bronze medal at the Asian Junior Championships, where he noteworthily defeated the juniors World No. 1 in Thailand. However, he eventually lost out to China’s Sun Feixiang.
The latter again summoned Sen at the World Junior Championships in Spain. Nonetheless, even though he lost at the junior level, he more than made amends for it by winning a medal at the senior level. The event was the All-India Senior Championships in Itanagar.
That was followed by another phenomenal feat when Sen won his first international medal at the senior level in the form of the Sats India International Series in Hyderabad.
2017
2017 was an eventful year for the teenager, as he added many titles to his name.
He won the prestigious India International Series and the Eurasian Bulgarian Open, both of which are BWF International Challenge/Series. Sen was also a runner-up at the Tata Open International.
2018
However, it was 2018 that proved to be a landmark year for him. It was this year that he claimed the ultimate honor – the Asian Junior Championship title. Sen defeated World No. 1, Thailand’s Kunlavut Vitidsarn in the finals to clinch the coveted title. Consequently, he became only the second Indian after Gautam Thakkar in 1965 and PV Sindhu in 2012 to reach the heights.
Congratulations to Shifeng Li for the @YOG2018 Gold Medal.. he played an excellent match. I hope we play many more matches against each other. Personally, I am disappointed with my performance in the finals but had an amazing experience at the #YouthOlympics pic.twitter.com/FK355LfvUx
— Lakshya Sen (@lakshya_sen) October 13, 2018
Then, at the 2018 Buenos Aires Youth Olympics, the youngster went on until the finals of the men’s singles. However, he was defeated in the finale by China’s Li Chifeng. Nevertheless, by clinching the silver, he became the first Indian shuttler to win a medal in the Youth Olympics.
2019
Lakshya Sen won the Belgian International tournament after defeating Victor Svendsen 21-14 and 21-15.
Sen bagged his first BWF Tour title by winning the Dutch Open men’s singles title after defeating Yusuke Onodera of Japan.
In November 2019, Sen clinched SaarLorLux Open which is a BWF Tour Super 100 tournament in Saarbrücken, Germany.
He won the men’s singles Scottish Open title in November 2019, with a victory against Brazilian Ygor Coelho.
2020
Sen was part of the Indian team which clinched the bronze medal at the 2020 Badminton Asia Team Championships.
Lakshya also reached the 2nd round of the 2020 All England Open, his 1st ever BWF Super 1000 Tournament before losing to the champion Viktor Axelsen by 17-21 and 18-21.
Sen was seeded as no.2 at the 2020 SaarLorLux Open but due to injury he had to withdraw and because of the Covid-19 Pandemic, he couldn’t play anymore international BWF Tournaments in the year.
2021
In December, he made it to the World Championships semifinals where he lost to compatriot Srikanth Kidambi in a closely fought contest match 21–17, 14–21, 17–21, and settled for a bronze medal.
2022
In January, he beat the reigning world champion, Loh Kean Yew, in the India Open final and clinched his first Super 500 title.
In the German Open, Lakshya defeated World No.1, Viktor Axelsen, in the semifinals, and in the finals, he lost to Kunlavut Vitidsarn.
Lakshya defeated World No. 3 Anders Antonsen and World No. 7 Lee Zii Jia to reach the finals of 2022 All England Open.
Sen was part of the Indian men’s team for the prestigious Thomas Cup 2022. The Indian team won Thomas Cup by beating Indonesia 3–0, with Sen winning his match against Anthony Sinisuka Ginting.
Lakshya won a gold medal at the 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 in CWG 2022.
As per the BWF World Rankings released on Tuesday, CWG Champion Lakshya Sen reached his career-best eighth position in men’s singles in October 2022.
Lakshya Sen Family
Lakshya Sen was born to Dhirendra K. Sen and Nirmala Sen in the Almora city of Uttarakhand. Dhirendra was also a national badminton coach at the Sports Authority of India (SAI) and Nirmala is a schoolteacher. Lakshya’s elder brother, Chirag Sen, is also an international badminton player.
Net Worth
In the 2018 Premier Badminton League Auction, Lakshya Sen was bought by the PBL debutants, Pune 7 Aces for ₹ 11 lakhs. Pune 7 Aces, a Tapsee Pannu and KRI owned team and was headlined by World Champions Carolina Marin and Chris Addock.
Lakshya Sen’s net worth has been growing significantly since 2020-2021 and he has around $2 million net worth as of 2022
Achievements
Bronze at the 2016 Asia Juniors Championships
Gold at the 2016 India International Series
Silver at the 2017 Tata Open India International
Gold at the 2017 India International Series
Gold at the 2017 Eurasian Bulgarian Open
Silver at the 2018 Buenos Aires Youth Olympics
Gold at the 2018 Asian Junior Championships, Bangkok
Bronze at the 2018 World Junior Championships, Canada
Silver at the 2018 Youth Olympic Games, Argentina
Bronze at the 2021 World Championship, Huelva, Spain
Gold at the 2022 Commonwealth Games, Birmingham
Records
List of all the top shuttlers he has beaten in 2022
– 2021 Olympic champion Viktor Axelsen
– 2021 Olympic bronze medal winner Anthony Ginting
– 2021 World champion Loh Kean Yew
– 2021 World bronze medalist Anders Antonsen
– 2021 All England champion Lee Jii Zia
Career Singles
| PERIOD | PLAYED | WON | LOST | BALANCE | EARNINGS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ALL | 271 | 200 | 71 | +129 | 157,246 |
| 2022 | 41 | 29 | 12 | +17 | 76,210 |
Career Doubles
| PERIOD | PLAYED | WON | LOST | BALANCE | EARNINGS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ALL | 8 | 3 | 5 | -2 | 0 |
| 2022 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Laksha will go very far and will make India VERY proud in less than FIVE more years.