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New Delhi: Lakshya Sen navigated a lot of self doubts and prevented multiple opinions from cluttering his mind as ended a year of heartbreaks through his Australian Open triumph.
Since his fourth-place finish at Paris Olympics, Sen had struggled with form and fitness but improved physical conditions and having faith in the method chosen for training brought him back to the spotlight.
"Post the Olympics, it was a little bit hard for me to find motivation again to train really hard. I took a break for some time. I was not doing so well," he said on Tuesday after returning from Sydney.
"I think there was a lot of first round exits as well. A lot of the things I was dealing with mentally, I was still competing in a few tournaments, but I was not really 100% there."
A persistent back issue lead to mental fatigue that added to Sen’s poor form as he visited Austria to work on strengthening his affected area.
"There were a few niggles here and there. It was not a major injury but I was getting some back spasms because of high match intensity or the loads in the back," the 24-yar-old said.
"There were a lot of things throughout the year, there were a lot of doubts that were there in my mind. And a lot of people had a lot of different opinions about training, about tournaments, about playing.
"I think for me, it was important to just block everything and believe in myself … just trust yourself that you are doing the right thing."
To maintain the momentum onto the new year, Sen said he is already trying to expand his shot-making aware that he would face stiff competition.
"It's been almost like 3-4 years in the senior circuit and people start to read your game. My coach (Yoo Yong Song) told me that you have to find a little bit more variation from the net. Maybe hold a little bit on the shots,” he said.
"So I worked a lot on the technical part of the game... I'm not too much worried about my tactical or technical stuff. So, just fine tuning a few of the things. If the skill is there, it doesn't go away.
"But again, finding a few variations from the net and also from the back of the court was important. So just kept working on it with some few variations and a few deceptions on the shots and it's working wonderfully."
