When rising Indian shuttler Ayush Shetty takes on Lin Chun-yi in the Orleans Masters 2025 semi-finals on Saturday, he will be hoping to go one step forward to join Priyanshu Rajawat in winning the BWF Super 300 event.
He overcame former World Champion Loh Kean Yew in the run-up to the final four. It was a vital victory in search of his maiden senior title.
And even before that, the 19-year-old has caught attention of Olympic gold medalist Viktor Axelsen.
“He texted saying, ‘Ayush is very similar to me’ and that he has a really good hit,” Vimal Kumar recalls in an interview to the Indian Express.
The former World No.1 was referring to Shetty’s 6 feet 4 inches tall frame, that also helped to position himself better against another Dane Rasmus Gemke in the Oreleans Masters 2025 quarter-finals.
“He should’ve won in 2. But he recovered well to score a big win – beating Gemke who is a very sticky player in Europe is good. This establishes him as the name to look out for. With his height advantage, he will be a very big threat to all players. Top 30 by year-end, and he should be in big Super Series soon,” Vimal highlighted.
The 2023 World Junior Championships bronze medallist displayed strong net play against Gemke. But he needs more variations to shrug off his predictability, Vimal insists.
“He needs more variations at the net because playing straight, forehand down the net is his go-to. Ideally if he ups his pace, he needn’t run to the net always,” Vimal said.
“He has a good half smash and can clip it half the times like Viktor does. If he can mix deception with hard smashes, he’ll get better,” the coach added.
Note: An edit was made in this paragraph “The 2023 World Junior Championships bronze medallist displayed strong net play against Gemke. But he needs more variations to shrug off his predictability, Vimal insists.”
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