Lakshya Sen claims silver in the Senior Nationals | Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy

Fifteen year old Lakshya Sen of Uttarakhand became the youngest so far to reach the finals of the Senior National Badminton Championship. Lakshya, trainee of the Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy since 2009, bid to eclipse his mentor Prakash Padukone’s feat in winning the Senior National Badminton Championships at the age of 16 was foiled by Saurav Verma who beat him 21-13, 21-12. Lakshya strung together a series of creditable wins over older and more experienced opponents to reach the finals. His most remarkable win was the one over Indonesian Grand Prix winner and top seed H S Prannoy whom he beat in three close games. He also had a marathon three set win over Daniel Farid of Karnataka which he won 21-19 in the third. Lakshya, the current Junior National Champion was a bronze medalist in last year’s Badminton Asia Confederation Youth Under 19 Championships held in Thailand and was also the only player to take the World Junior Champion Sun Feixiang from China to three games in the World Junior Championships in Spain last year. This year can be termed a most memorable one for Lakshya who, in addition has been now ranked No. 1 in the world among Juniors last week. He also won his first All India Senior title in Itanagar also annexed his first Senior International title winning the India International Series in Hyderabad in November last year. Lakshya now moves to Europe in March along with academy mates Kiran George, Kartikey, Ashwini and Mithula to participate in the Dutch and German Junior Internationals to be held in March this year.

Shikha Gautam combined with Sanyogita Ghorpade to bag the silver in Women’s Doubles. Shikha and Sanyogita lost to Aparna Balan and Prajakta Sawant 9-21, 11-21 in the finals. Mahima Aggarwal also won a bronze in the Women’s Doubles combining with Maneesha 13-21, 11-21.