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Lakshya Sen, the 15-year old shuttler from Dehradun achieved a remarkable feat as he is now the top-ranked junior Badminton player in the world. His closest competitor in the rankings table is Chia-Hao Lee of Chinese Taipei who is at the second position by quite a distance.
Lakshya made history in September last year after winning the All India Senior Ranking Badminton Tournament held at Itanagar in Arunachal Pradesh. The youngest ever player and the first ever from Uttarakhand to win the title, he defeated Daniel Farid of Karnataka in straight sets 21-11 and 21-14.
In case you didn’t know...
The youngster made a grand entry into the world of Badminton when he was 10 years old in 2012 having won the Israel Junior International, following which he was showered with words of praise from legendary player Prakash Padukone who said that Lakshya plays better than what he used to play at the age of 10.
A couple of years later he won yet another International event, it was the under-19 tournament held at the Wimbledon tennis and croquet club after getting the better of James Farmer of England
Prior to that, Lakshya was also a part of the Mixed Team event at the Junior Asian Badminton Championships in Jaipur, and was undefeated in the tournament winning all the three matches he featured in. That wasn’t the end of the road for him in that tournament as he reached the semi-final stage of that tournament in the individual event and even won the Bronze medal.
The heart of the matter
The boy from Uttarakhand is making wonders in the field of Badminton at a very tender age and it will surely take a mammoth task to maintain the standard. It is a remarkable feat by Lakshya keeping in mind the dominance of countries like China, Japan and Indonesia, who have always outclassed others in the Badminton court.
Sportskeeda Take
India’s progress in the field of Badminton has been more than exponential in the past year, PV Sindhu set the standards high after winning the silver medal at the Olympics Games last year in Rio de Janeiro, losing the final to Carolina Marin of Spain.
