Playing some of his best badminton to date, Lakshya Sen battled for one hour and 37 minutes to beat Canada’s Victor Lai 21-16, 18-21, 21-15 and enter the final of the All England Championships. It was an epic yet grueling encounter which Lakshya managed to clinch it despite playing the last 25 minutes under severe cramps.
“Retire, or play on.”
It sounded a harsh thing to tell a player leading by four points in the decider of an All England Championships semifinal, but that’s what the umpire told Lakshya Sen. That is, in a nutshell, elite level badminton: Harsh, bruising, crushing body and spirit and soul in a machine-like system that has no space for sympathy, no time for cramps, no chance for rest. It’s this arduousness that has often gotten to Lakshya.
Always talented, always the nearly-man of Indian badminton. Surely, not again? Here he was in Birmingham… hurting, cramping up, barely able to stand on one leg. He was in touching distance of glory at the most illustrious of all the big badminton tournaments, and he looked like he could barely make it to the next point.
“Retire, or play on.” It would have been so easy to do the former. To say, ‘Enough, I can’t do this anymore’.
In front of him was hyper-talented 21-year-old Victor Lai, world no. 16 and rapidly climbing, a mirror image to Lakshya in the way he dived around the court making impossible retrieves, extending rallies he had no right to extend, and pulling off winners out of nothing. Lai wasn’t going to make this any easier. Just a few points before he cramped up, the two had engaged in an incredible 86-shot rally that looked like it would go to three-figures and then some before a poor call of body-hit from the umpire stopped them.
He had won the opening game 21-16, a score that didn’t reflect how tight it had been. Lai had taken it to the decider with an even closer 21-18 win in the second. Here, in the decider, just as Lakshya’s experience and new-found calm had seen him take a 12-8 lead, cramps struck. In visible pain, almost grotesquely limited in his court movements, he looked over to coach Yoo Yong-Sung and came up with a new, painful battle plan: he would attack every point with vicious violence. It wasn’t his style, but there was no chance he’d be able to take the match if he reverted to plan A.
A smash down the line, a yell of pain, a hobble back to position. 13-8. A diving stop that saw the little finger on his right hand graze the court and draw blood. 16-12. A couple of smash-drop combos from Lai that he couldn’t do anything about. 16-14. An angled jump smash, a yell, a hobble. 17-14. A fault born more out of pain than any error in technique. 17-15. A down-the-line jump smash, another yell, another hobble. Another, and then another, forcing Lai into errors, keeping rallies short, exploding off the floor and landing on a foot he can barely stand on… and somehow, an hour and 37 minutes after he started, he took the semi, winning the decider game 21-15.
Rally of total commitment. ��
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#BWFWorldTour #AllEngland2026 pic.twitter.com/8eUNMwpgAa– BWF (@bwfmedia) March 7, 2026
Lai collapsed on his side, Lakshya hobbled over to congratulate him for what had been a great spectacle, before sprint-hobbling into the arms of coach Sung — pain and relief and plain ol’ joy bursting out him in a wild roar. It had been some win; one of the greatest of his career.
In fact, it had been some week for him: an opening match that lasted 1 hour, 18 mins against world no. 1 Shi Yu Qi, a second round against Ng Ka Long Angus that see-sawed for an hour and 21 minutes, a more straightforward, but still hour-long quarterfinal against world no. 6 Li Shi Feng. At various points his resolve had been tested, both mental and physical. He’d been pushed to the edge of his skill, and he’d come out triumphant.
Last year, Lakshya had spoken in detail to ESPN about his struggles post the cruel fourth place finish at the Paris Olympics, about he had learnt to disconnect from timelines that added pressure, to focus on the here and now, to enjoy the sport he loves… in Birmingham he’s shown that he really has put this new philosophy to practice. And that he has now found a new gear, one of those that could push him to the level he’s always threatened to breach.
He had come into these Championships unseeded and under-the-radar. Into the final he goes now, aiming to be just the third Indian to win this tournament after the greats Prakash Padukone and Pullela Gopichand.
“Retire or play on”. The Lakshya Sen of 2026 is going to play on… perhaps all the way into Indian badminton’s history books.
