Lakshya Sen didn’t play badly at all, but he lacked the composure at the finish, where his wild hitting proved to be his undoing. Sen lost the Thailand Open semifinals to local favourite and second seed Kunlavut Vitidsarn, 21-13, 17-21, 13-21.
Sen dominated play in the opening set of the 74 minute encounter, with his full-throttle attack. He was prancing around the court with good movement, catching Kunlavut off balance with his in-rally sudden, explosive accelerations. There were straight smashes to go to 8-5, though the standout shot came at 11-6 for a backhand pirouette smash. He built on that lead to take the opener 21-13 in 19 minutes. Kunlavut was largely error-prone at this stage, sending the shuttle wide.
The rallies got longer in the second, including a 51-shot one at 4-4, in what was a sign of things to come. Kunlavut blinked first at that specific juncture, but the longer exchanges were drawing out errors from Sen as well into the net.
Kunlavut was defending better at this stage, and began to dictate points in the rallies which were a drop-clear metronome, ending with the Thai’s smash kills. “There were a couple of key moments around 17-15, 17-16, when Lakshya chose the wrong strategy. Instead of getting drawn into the long rallies, he should’ve instead chosen to go on an all-out attack,” coach Anup Sridhar said.
Kunlavut was also finding some incredible winners that frustrated Sen, as the Thai raced from 17-all to 17-21, levelling the set scores. The second set went on for 30 minutes, accounting for the long rallies which Sen couldn’t stem.
Sen did well to take the 10-6 lead in the decider, but once again the lead vamoozed. “4 points slipped out in quick succession, and he was on the faster end of the court from where the flicks and clears were going out,” Anup said. Then came the unbelievable rallies and shots from the Thai in closing out.
At 11-13, Kunlavut hit a brilliant deceptive backhand push which looked like it would go cross, but went straight as an arrow down the line. Shots like those further disheartened Sen who served into the net at 12-15 down. “It was physically draining for both, but Kunlavut’s brilliant strokes took a toll on Lakshya,” Anup added.
In the end he was left slashing wildly as the shuttle floated long and wide, piling up the errors and the Thai opened up a huge gap from 11-11 onwards. At 12-20 Kunlavut had another beautiful backhand cross net, before Sen sent the final shuttle wide to go down in the season’s first Super 500 semifinal.