New Delhi, July 10, 2023: Lakshya Sen saved four game points in the second after taking the first to claim the Canada Open Super 500 at Calgary on Sunday. The six straight points he scored to win the championship showed the mental stranglehold he held over Chinese Li Shifeng throughout the game to win 21-18, 22-20 in 50 minutes.
Adding extra acceleration onto his flat drives, pouncing on every short lift and playing some ridiculously tight shots at the net, Sen went on to win his second Super 500 title of his career after the India Open, beating the reigning All England champion.
Sen took a 6-2 lead in the opener and zealously guarded it throughout the first set though Shifeng levelled at 15-all. Injecting pace into his returns, Sen would set up winners each time a loose shuttle floated his way as he showed the ability to collect points in a cluster. Even at 15-all, Sen went on the offensive straightaway with three quick points to not give away the initiative. Winning the opener gave him the mental edge over Shifeng in a match where both played at a punishing pace of rallies.
Around the time when Sen made All England finals it was said that no lead was safe around Sen. In what is a definitive signal to return to form, Sen made a mockery of the 20-16 lead that Shifeng rustled up in the second, with six points mostly winners as the Chinese struggled to finish out according to the reports published in indianexpress.com.
Sen first drew out rare line errors out of Shifeng, and then hit winners of his own to chomp into the lead and take Championship points of his own, which he converted on the first attempt.
“Lakshya did not give up at 20-16. It is so easy to slip into that frame of mind that he’s won the first and can play the decider. But as coach I kept telling him one point at a time. He would’ve been alright had it gone to the third too, such is his physical fitness,” coach Anup Sridhar said later.
Li Shifeng has a backhand net – “almost of Taufik level” – which he often employed to lull Sen into soft, short lifts for a kill, drawing him into flat exchanges. At 20-16 onwards, Sen could specifically avoid that and sent his lifts higher and further back at that juncture which proved decisive. “But it was important once he got to 20-all he did not breathe a sigh of relief, because had he lost that game from there he would’ve been demoralised. He played those last two long rallies superbly, and sent the lifts higher which won him the match,” Anup said.
