Lakshya Unnati Negotiate Tricky Conditions To Progress

New Delhi: Before Lakshya Sen took the court against Collins Valentine Filimon of Austria in his first-round match at the BWF World Championships here on Tuesday, some of the big names of world badminton had found the court conditions tricky. The talk centered on how quickly one could adapt to the wobbling shuttle at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium here.

In the morning, fifth seed Christo Popov lost to Kenta Nishimoto, while former champion Nozomi Okuhara and Chinese fourth seed Chen Yufei had to overcome first-game deficits against unfancied opponents to advance to the next round.

The slow conditions, with sideways drift in the big arena, challenged every shuttler. Those quick to grip the airflow and perfect their stroke timing flourished, while early risk-takers either committed errors or gave opponents loose shuttles to attack. The line was drawn on Monday itself: bring out your attacks only after once you get the timing right from both sides of the court.

“I started with a side which was windy, so it was hard to control the shuttles on the lift. A lot of my lifts were going quite short. In the second set, I knew I’m on a better end, so I could play my game freely,” said Lakshya, who will face Garret Tan of the USA.

“When I was going for drives in the first set, I wasn’t getting any point because he’s tall and he can easily tackle those shots. So in the second game, I tried to open up the court a bit more. I hit a few lifts in the rallies and then I was able to play my shots. Otherwise, in the first set, there were a lot of errors. The game plan was a bit different, but I changed a few things in the second and third sets,” said Lakshya.

In the morning session, Unnati Hooda, playing her first match at this stage, was also troubled by Thuzar Thet Htar of Myanmar before she bailed herself out 22-20, 21-16. Thuzar, who liked the slow conditions and patiently constructed points had a game point but Unnati saved it with a smash, then judged an outgoing toss well and then took the lead with a fine midcourt placement.

She was in control in the second game and it was now Thuzar who lost her rhythm after the change of ends.

“In the first game, I was just trying to understand the drift but she was also playing very good and it was going neck to neck. In the last five points of the first game, I controlled and stayed patient and she started making mistakes. In the second game, my attacking strokes were going fine. So I just played my attacking game.”

Ayush Shetty’s victory against defending champion Shi Yuqi has given a lot of confidence to the Indian contingent. “He is a good friend and he played so well, beating the No. 1 seed on the first day. It really gives everyone confidence that you can beat anyone,” said Unnati, who will take on seasoned Michelle Li in the round of 32.

Ayush also showed the way on how to control the shuttle and nerves on the first day. When he was asked about the conditions, he had calmly said it was the same on both sides and didn’t find it difficult to negotiate.

The Indian mixed doubles pair of Ashith Surya and Amrutha Pramuthesh played their hearts out before going down to Turkey’s Emre Sönmez and Yasemen Bektas 21-16, 29-30, 22-24. After winning the first game, the Indian duo had a string of match points but could not convert them. The Turkish combination kept pushing them in the dramatic second game, which was finally decided by a golden point — a tiebreaker when no team is able to finish with a two-point advantage.

The other Indian pair of Rohan Kapoor and Ruthvika Shivani Gadde also lost a close match against Canada’s Jonathan Bing Tsan Lai and Crystal Lai 22-20, 21-19, 21-17. There was no such scare for the established combination of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand as they beat USA’s Lauren Lam and Allison Quynh Lee 21-15, 21-12 to advance to the round of 16.