Deepika Padukone comforted “devastated” Lakshya Sen after losing the Olympic bronze-medal match

Lakshya Sen received a call from Deepika Padukone, the daughter of his coach, Prakash Padukone after the shuttler lost the bronze-medal match.

Even multiple days after the conclusion of the Paris Olympics 2024, Lakshya Sen, the Indian shuttler who had reached the bronze-medal match of the men’s badminton event in the Games, is still upset with his back-to-back defeats. Lakshya Sen was India’s last hope in badminton after PV Sindhu, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy, Chirag Shetty, and HS Prannoy were eliminated. He had two chances of winning India a medal, in the semifinal against Denmark’s Viktor Axelsen and then against Malaysia’s Lee Zee Jia in the bronze-medal event.

Lakshya is still hurting from his defeat at the bronze-medal match at the Paris Olympics 2024.

In both games, Lakshya Sen had a chance of winning India a medal, but he missed it as he came up just a little short and had to return home empty-handed. No male shuttler at the Games could clinch a medal for India, which has hurt Lakshya profoundly. He is still coping with the disappointment of coming so near, yet so far. He said, “After the match, I was devastated. It’s going to hurt for a while that I couldn’t give India the medal at this Olympics. I knew I was going to face Viktor Axelsen in the match, and the way I had prepared, things were fine. Overall, I had the right tactics. I had the right approach. At the crucial stages, I could have been a little more clinical. Now that I sit back and think, I know there are some things that I could have done better. Everything was fine, but towards the end, I wasn’t able to get there.”

Deepika Padukone called Lakshya.

After losing the match, Lakshya Sen’s coach, Prakash Padukone, and Vimal Kumar criticized, holding the shuttlers responsible for the ending of India’s 12-year-medal-winning streak at the Paris Olympics 2024. Lakshya, however, recalled how his coach, Prakash Padukone’s daughter, Deepika Padukone, reached out to him after his bronze-medal match and comforted him through her sweet words. He said, “They have been really supportive. Even after the bronze medal match, she called me and said, ‘It’s fine; don’t worry. You did good.’ Prakash sir has been like a mentor and father figure to me. It’s always nice to talk to them if I want any advice or want to talk to them freely.”