Winning CWG Gold Was One of My Childhood Dreams: Lakshya Sen To NDTV on Badminton Triumph

Lakshya Sen has been going from strength to strength in recent times. The 20-year-old shuttler had earlier finished runners-up in the prestigious All England Championships in March, before helping India win the Tomas Cup in May. Now, he has won the men’s singles gold medal at the Commonwealth Games 2022 with a tough win against Malaysia’s NG Tze Yong on Monday. Sen fought with a lot of heart after losing the first game in the final to ultimately clinch the match 19-21, 21-19 and 21-16.

With Sen’s gold medal win, India had two podium finishers in men’s singles with the veteran Kidambi Srikanth winning the bronze medal.

“It’s a great feeling to share the podium with Srikanth bhaiya. Winning the CWG gold was one of my dreams as a kid. Today I have done it and I am feeling great,” Lakshya told NDTV.

“It was one of the tournaments before which I took three-four weeks off. I was preparing for this tournament and next week we have big tournament coming up. All the matches starting from semi-final, even the team event final was very strong over here. I tried to take it as one match at a time. There were a lot of upsets in the quarter-finals and semi-finals. The top seed lost in the quarters, Srikanth lost in the semis.”

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Regarding the final, Sen said: “It was very tough in the first game. I had to dig deep. I am happy to keep the nerve in the third game.”

The Thomas Cup win has given Indian badminton a new fillip. “Definitely after that tournament all the the players have been motivated to do well,” he said.