15-year-old young badminton player Lakshya Sen became No. 1 junior badminton player in the world on Thursday.
Sen, born in Uttarakhand in India, won the bronze medal at Junior Asian Championships to achieve the number one spot in the latest Badminton World Federation (BWF) World junior ranking.
“Proud that OGQ has supported him since he was 11. OGQ has provided a full time physio and trainer only for Lakshya and he is on a special diet as well,” said Viren Rasquinha, CEO at Olympic Gold Quest and former India Hockey captain to The Hindu.
According to BWF current rankings, Lakshya has 16,903 points in eight tournaments he has played in the season pipping second-placed Chia Hao of Chinese Taipei, who has 16,091 points.
The young shuttler has had a brilliant year on the badminton circuit in 2016.
He won the Senior India International Series Badminton Tournament along with the All India Senior Ranking Badminton Tournament at Itanagar.
Sen has been trained by 1980 All England champion Prakash Padukone at his Badminton Academy in Bangalore since he was 10.
"We were expecting this, perhaps it has come a little bit sooner than expected. Lakshya is a naturally gifted player and is quick to grasp the finer points of the game. I felt he had some very special qualities from the very beginning. The idea now is to help him keep developing tactically, which I feel is very important in the modern game where everyone tends to play a similar style as opposed to the '80s and '90s. I see my job as the one posing the questions, making him come up with the answers and I find he is faster at that than other players," Padukone was quoted as saying by ESPN.
