Paris Olympics 2024: Nervous Lakshya Sen falls short to Axelsen, to compete for bronze medal

India’s Lakshya Sen returns to Denmark’s Viktor Axelsen during their semi-final in Paris yesterday. Pic/AFP

At the end of a tight 22-20, 21-14 triumph in the 2024 Olympics men's singles semi-final against India's Lakshya Sen, a vastly relieved defending champion Viktor Axelsen warmly embraced his opponent at the net and declared to the media, "This was the toughest match I have played at this Olympics. Four years from now, he [Sen] will be the favourite to win the gold!"

The turning point came when Sen, sitting atop three game-points at 20-17 in the opening stanza was intimidated by the huge 6'4" figure looming on the other side of the net, and produced a low service that clipped the net and fell a few inches short of the service line. That was all the encouragement that Axelsen needed to play the next four points flawlessly and pocket the all-important first game.

Dane took time to adjust

The giant Dane took a little while to adjust to the drift movement of the other side, but he tightened his grip by drawing level before lemon-time, and gave Sen no chance in the rest of the game by upping the pace and using his height and reach to rain down steep smashes.

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Viktor Axelsen

Axelsen won this duel in the mind. He weathered the storm when the 22-year-old Indian was executing his plan of keeping the net duels tight and then lifting the shuttle to the rival baseline, to play lengthy rallies which he often finished by hitting sharp overhead smashes to the Axelsen net backhand.

However, sensing that his own heavy artillery held no terrors for Axelsen, who started returning Sen's best smashes with impunity, the Indian put that smash into mothballs for the better part of the second game, and failed to make the Dane play that extra stroke.

Sen also failed to match Axelsen's pace when the super-fit title holder moved up a gear in the second game, and appeared bothered by his antagonist's serve which the Dane executed after swaying the racquet from side to side several times before contacting the bird.

Ugly style of serving

There is no rule to prevent a player from swaying his racquet thus and one suspects that the BWF will soon be compelled to bring in a rule to prevent this ugly style of serving. Sen has been left to play-off for the bronze medal with Malaysian hard-hitter Lee Zii Jia, who went down to reigning world champion Kunlavut Vitidsarn of Thailand 21-14, 21-15.