MIND GAMES: Lakshya Sen loses it in the mind, cracks after 20-17 in first game | To play for bronze today

Rohit Mahajan in Paris

Viktor Axelsen, man mountain, leaps up and smashes down the shuttle from 10 feet high; yet that’s not the reason he won the semifinal against India’s Lakshya Sen today. Denmark’s Axelsen, the defending Olympics champion, tapped the side of his head and said: “I won the match up here today!”

If I had closed the first set, I would have better chances in the third. I had to be more patient at that time. Overall, in that moment, I did whatever came to my mind. — Lakshya Sen

I think Lakshya, he thought a lot about it. He was probably thinking ‘I have a big chance’. I think he got nervous. — Viktor Axelsen

Sen, leading 20-17 in the first game, three game points in hand, cracked under pressure — hope and expectation made his heart pound, his mind race. Serving, he wanted to keep the shuttle close to the net, place it short of the reach of the 6ft 4in Dane, but it was too short and Axelsen roared. The crowd, most of them Danes, roared “Viktor! Viktor! Viktor!”, drowning out the “India, India!” from Sen’s supporters in the stands. Sen, 22, then simply fell apart: He hit long twice, and then smashed out — 21-20 for Axelsen, and then game for Axelsen as Sen failed to put his drop shot on the other side of the net.
Was that the turning point, then? Axelsen, two-time Olympics medallist, two-time world champion, thought so. “I could definitely feel that he was tense,” said the 30-year-old. “He maybe started to think about what he was doing. The pressure was there. That was my chance to grab the game. It wasn’t easy, and I did it.”
To win today against the formidable Dane, Sen’s best chance was to win the first game — he did unsettle Axelsen, but he didn’t stay in the moment and became impatient and edgy.
Second game, Sen started strongly, Axelsen surprisingly error-prone: he smashed into the net, hit long, hit wide, and in no time Sen was up 7-0. He was moving like a dream, floating across the court, but Axelsen started clawing his way back — a smash on the line, an error by Sen, and another, and the scoreline was 9-7. Axelsen wasn’t perfect, perhaps overeager in parts, smashing into the net and wide and long. But when he’s smashing well, he’s almost unreturnable — when Sen did pick up the shuttle, as at 11-11 or 13-16 or 14-19, he was left scrambling and out of position, leaving the court empty.
In no time, Axelsen had overturned the 10-11 deficit and gone 19-14 up, winning nine of the previous 12 points. Sen’s agony ended at 12:54pm sharp, after 54 minutes of intense hope, intense thought, intense despair; Axelsen pranced about, sank to his knees, saluted the Danes in all four stands and sent his racquet flying into them for a lucky catcher.
Sen, never the most verbose of men, despaired, lamenting the errors he made late in the first game. “If I had closed the first set, I would have better chances in the third,” he said. 20-17, 7-0… “I had to be more patient at that time,” said Sen. “Overall, in that moment, I did whatever came to my mind.”
At the elite level they operate, players being near equals, it boils down to the mind. “If you start to think, you have problems,” said Axelsen about being 17-20 down in the first game. “I think Lakshya, he thought a lot about it. He was probably thinking ‘I have a big chance’. I think he got nervous. And when he gets nervous, I know I have to strike.”
And strike Axelsen did, winning 26 of the next 40 points, handing Sen an eighth defeat in the nine matches they’ve played.
Sen will fight for bronze tomorrow, against Zii Jia Lee of Malaysia.
“I’d look at things I can improve upon tomorrow,” he said. “Forget this match, give my best tomorrow.”
“He could easily have won today,” said Axelsen. “I think in four years, Lakshya would be a stronger bet for gold.”