Badminton: Lakshya Sen needs to now look beyond the world junior crown, just like Sindhu and Saina

Rising Indian shuttler Lakshya Sen capped off a brilliant year in the junior circuit with an individual bronze medal at the BWF World Junior Championships in Canada on Sunday. It was the 17-year-old’s first medal in the prestigious meet but even he would have been disappointed with not being able to claim the title after bagging the Asian Junior crown and the Youth Olympics silver earlier this year.

Probably the best consolation for him could be that he is just 17 and will get another chance at glory.

But this is precisely the kind of talk that Lakshya, his parents and the coaching staff would do well to avoid if the Almora-born shuttler wants to convert all that potential into champion material and justify the faith of his mentor Prakash Padukone, who saw the spark in a 11-year-old and picked him for training at his academy.

One may ask why a player who has the potential to become the first Indian men’s singles junior world champion should let go of an opportunity to create history if he is still eligible to participate in next year’s edition?

Think big

The answer is that while there is nothing wrong in going for that title, success in the junior circuit will only take one so far. It is the performance in the senior circuit that essentially helps a player reserve a place for themselves in history and Lakshya needs to think bigger than the world junior crown.

This was exactly the discussion that took place among some coaches and former players soon after the last Senior Nationals, where Lakshya reached the semi-finals, having won two senior international tournaments in the year.

The general consensus was that the level of competition and maturity required to succeed in the senior circuit is very different from the junior level. For all his potential, Lakshya would need a couple of years to make a breakthrough on the senior circuit and consistently play well against the best in the business before challenging for bigger titles.

There have been enough examples in India itself for the 17-year-old to learn from. RMV Guru Sai Dutt and B Sai Praneeth started their careers by making a mark on the junior circuit at the same time as Saina Nehwal and even have world junior championship medals to show for their efforts.

But among them, Guru Sai Dutt never managed to show the same spark in the senior circuit, while the inconsistent Sai Praneeth needed seven years before he could win a major title – the Singapore Superseries last year. Even former world junior No 1 Aditya Joshi and Siril Verma, who has also won a world junior silver, have struggled to find their feet on the senior circuit and are virtually forgotten from the public consciousness.

Most will lay the blame for the lack of success in the senior circuit on the constant injuries that have kept them out for considerable periods. But that is just a half-truth because the harsher reality is that they simply could not cope with the rigours of the senior circuit – physically and mentally.

Transition from junior to senior

So what exactly changes when one graduates from the junior to senior circuit?

In the age-group tournaments, the winner is mostly the player who makes fewer mistakes or is fitter. Though that gap is reduced by the time the players reach the under-19 level, it can hardly prepare a player for the senior circuit.

At this level, even the journeymen are extremely fit, have far better understanding of the game – tactically and emotionally – and are consistent.

On the other hand, the junior stars breaking into the senior circuit are over-eager to prove their mettle and try to push themselves by playing more tournaments to gain ranking points without understanding the additional load they are putting on their body and mind.

This normally results in stress injuries, and the vicious circle of recovering from injuries while trying to still maintain the ranking ends up becoming a never-ending ordeal.

Those who peak only in the last year of their junior career probably don’t really have a choice but to go with the flow and hope that things fall in place as the years pass by. But in Lakshya’s case, he has got the head-start that any junior would crave for. He got the benefits of quality training from a young age and he has already made his mark on the junior circuit. He has the blueprint of Saina Nehwal and PV Sindhu to follow.

Both Saina and Sindhu stopped playing the junior circuits by the time they were 15. While Saina came back to win the World Juniors in 2008 only because it was held in India, Sindhu doesn’t even have a World Junior medal in her trophy cabinet. But their achievements in the senior circuit have more than guaranteed their place in the badminton Hall of Fame.

Anyone who has followed Lakshya’s career since his junior days would vouch for the fact that the 17-year-old’s potential actually started translating into success even at the junior level only after he started consistently playing in the senior events in the second half of 2016 and through 2017.

He used the experience of playing against senior opponents in his junior events quite well but it also resulted in a couple of stress injuries that kept him out of action for a few months.

India’s chief senior national coach Pullela Gopichand had made the same argument of giving Lakshya exposure to the senior competitions when he pushed his case for selection in the Indian team for the Thomas Cup and the youngster gave enough evidence of his capabilities by winning a game against the legendary Lin Dan.

But since then, Lakshya has concentrated only on the junior circuit – and understandably so – since there were medals at stake at the Asian Juniors, Youth Olympics and the World Juniors.

Now that he has achieved those goals, it’s time to change the thought process and focus on the long-term future rather than next year’s World Junior Championship.

Another year on the junior circuit could make him complacent because he would probably bulldoze most opponents and the pressure of that success may end up pulling him down when he actually makes the senior grade.

But if he makes the switch right now, he may lose matches; he may lose more matches than he will win. He may not make the headlines due to the lack of titles and some may even question his ability to succeed at that level. But this is an unavoidable stretch in any player’s career and given Lakshya’s potential, it is important he crosses it on his own terms rather than delay its arrival.

By the time the next World Juniors is round the corner and if the Badminton Association of India’s selection policies allow him to participate, he can still look at making history – knowing that the tournament would be a footnote in the larger narrative rather than the central theme.