‘Every guy needs motherly coaching’: The lady luck behind Garret Tan’s stunning Lakshya Sen upset

Garret Tan may have produced one of the biggest upsets of the BWF World Championships 2026, but he did not do it alone. As the 18-year-old American battled past India’s Lakshya Sen in a dramatic contest at the Indira Gandhi Stadium, two women sitting courtside became his pillars of support, coaches Lauren Lam and Cao Hok Paula Lynn, who helped the teenager navigate the pressure, the crowd, the drift and the crucial moments that threatened to swing the match. And, perhaps fittingly, Tan's biggest win on the biggest stage came with what his coach jokingly described as a little bit of ‘lady luck’.

“Every guy, I think, needs motherly coaching and a support, a big sister support,” Paula Lynn said after Tan’s victory. “His mom was also there, so it was that. He's obviously tough as a player, as a boy or a man, but he needs those, you know, like, the lady talk.” It was more than just a light-hearted observation. For Tan, who is playing his first World Championships at just 18, the presence of Lam, Paula Lynn and his mother offered a calming influence during a match that demanded far more than badminton skills. Lakshya, backed by a passionate home crowd, was the vastly more experienced player and carried the weight of Indian expectations. Tan, meanwhile, had to deal with the occasion, the hostile atmosphere and the peculiar conditions inside the arena.

His coaches had prepared him for precisely that. “We've already expected that obviously it's a home advantage,” Paula Lynn explained. “We've talked about it and don't, of course, the yelling of the crowd that's cheering, just more like we prepare mentally that it's going to happen no matter what.” The message was simple: control what you can control. That meant ignoring the crowd. It meant adapting to the drift. It meant staying patient against Lakshya’s attacking game. And, above all, it meant remaining composed when the match entered its most delicate phase.

Lam, who described Tan as her “little brother”, was particularly impressed by the teenager's temperament. “I think for me I was actually impressed,” she said. “He's like my little brother and that's why we were sitting behind him. It's really impressive that he can maintain that focus and handle that pressure.” Tan's composure became even more impressive after he appeared to hit his head while diving during the match. The teenager experienced dizziness, but instead of allowing the incident to derail him, he managed to reset and continue fighting. Lam's advice was straightforward. “I told him to just keep his composure, keep focus and just focus on the current point that's happening,” she said.

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That ability to reset may have been one of the defining characteristics of Tan's performance. The coaches were not simply offering emotional support from the stands. They were also dissecting Lakshya's tactics and feeding Tan information between points. Their approach was a combination of calming the teenager down and helping him identify tactical opportunities. One of those instructions was to keep Lakshya away from the forecourt. “We noticed Lakshya is very good at putting a lot of pressure on Garret in front,” Paula Lynn said. “That's why we wanted to keep him away from the front.”

The American also had to contend with Lakshya's ability to neutralise his greatest weapon, his power. Tan is tall, athletic and capable of generating considerable pace, particularly with his jump smash. But Lakshya countered intelligently with angles and half-smashes rather than simply engaging in a battle of power. “His specialty is he's a power-controlled and power player,” Paula Lynn said. “If you could see when he's tall, he could jump really high, very powerful.”

Yet Tan showed that there was more to his game than brute force. His coaches had worked with him on controlling Lakshya's attacks, understanding the drift and making tactical adjustments depending on which side of the court he was on. And behind that tactical preparation is a relationship that stretches back years. Paula Lynn has coached Tan since he was a little boy. She has watched him grow not only physically, he is already remarkably tall and athletic for his age, but mentally. “He's always curious. ‘Coach, how will I do well on this? What should I work on? Do I do this?’” she said.

That curiosity, according to his coach, has gradually developed into one of Tan's biggest strengths: his willingness to listen. For Paula Lynn, the best quality a young player can possess is not necessarily a particular shot or physical attribute. “It’s more of like, as a player, you should be coachable,” she said. “You should be coachable because different coaches can give different opinions and even advice from different players.”

Tan, she believes, has embraced that philosophy. He trains in Southern California and also spends time training in Taiwan, giving him exposure to different environments as he continues his rapid development. And while his ranking is still climbing, the dream is already clear, for Tan to eventually share the biggest tournaments with the very coaches who have helped guide him there. “Right now he's still climbing in the rankings,” Lam said. “But hopefully we'll be playing the same tournaments soon.”

For now, though, Tan has already announced himself on one of badminton's biggest stages. He walked into the World Championships as an 18-year-old playing his first edition of the tournament. He walked out having beaten a former World Championships medallist on home soil, with thousands of Indian fans roaring against him. And behind him, throughout the battle, were two coaches offering tactical instructions, calming words and the kind of support that goes beyond badminton.

Maybe there was some Lady Luck involved. But the bigger story is that Garret Tan had a team around him that made sure he was ready to seize the moment.