Badminton: Lakshya Sen to train under Danish legend Morten Frost

Lakshya Sen, the teenage sensation in Indian badminton, had a fabulous 2018. He won the Asian Junior Championship, followed it up with medals in Youth Olympics and in World Junior Championship. The 17-year-old also had a great start to this year, after his transition to the senior circuit for the first time. Having jumped 28 places in the BWF rankings the boy from Almora, in Uttarakhand, has made it to the top 100, reaching 76th in world badminton rankings. Still Lakshya who has gone back home now to appear for his 12th board examination, recently said, “I need to work more with stamina and speed to compete with the top players in the senior level.” In order to polish his technique and style, his coaches, Prakash Padukone and Vimal Kumar have decided to send Lakshya to Denmark in September. Four more players from Prakash Padukone Academy are set to accompany Lakshya in the exposure tour where they will be participating in the Danish Premier League for close to three months. But the more important and significant effort initiated by Prakash and Vimal is that Lakshya and his three mates will be simultaneously training under legendary Danish player Morten Frost. Vimal, speaking on the issue from Bangalore, over phone said, “Prakash had practiced with Frost for a long time in Denmark. He did it before becoming the champion in All England back in 1980."

"Now we have an understanding with Frost training school. Lakshya and three other players from the academy will be representing different clubs in the leagues, but will be training together under Frost.”  The understanding between Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy (PPBA) is for one year, starting from September 2019. Padukone with Frost during his playing days. (Source: Shivani Naik/Indian Express) However, commenting on top three Indian badminton players, Saina Nehwal, PV Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth’s failure in All England this year, Vimal felt, “It often happens in racquet sports that the players do not click on a particular day. Hence I do not feel the quality of their game has declined.” The 57-year-old coach also feels in terms of consistency at highest level of the game, only Carolina Marin and Tai Tzu Ying are the only two shuttlers who are slight ahead of others in the world. Vimal explained, “Marin has the best fitness so far I have seen in recent world badminton. That is why she is so consistent and Tai Tzu’s strength is her deceptiveness. She is so tricky that it becomes tough for the opponents to read her game. Her tricks are very consistent.”