Driving Naari Programme launched in Chandigarh
New Delhi, In 2004, an extremely shy but confident 10-year-old girl finished runner-up in the Hyderabad District Badminton Championships. Dejected over the result, the slightly-built shuttler sat in one corner of the Lal Bahadur Stadium, with her parents trying to cheer her up. The shuttler wanted to win the tournament — she hadn’t travelled all the way from West Marredpally in Secunderabad to the venue of the event in Basheerbagh to settle for the second spot.
While her parents were trying to lift her spirits, a young man in his 30s placed his hand on her shoulder and said, “You were really good. You have the fighting spirit needed to become a professional badminton player. You seem to have a bright future, all you need is the right guidance.”
That man was All England champion and one of India’s finest badminton players, Pullela Gopichand, and the young girl was PV Sindhu, who would later become the country’s first woman player to win an Olympics silver medal. That was the first time Gopichand saw Sindhu, and recognised the talent she had. Thirteen years down the line since that runner-up finish, Sindhu has become the undisputed queen of Indian badminton with an Olympics silver medal (Rio Games 2016), two World Championship bronze medals (2013 and 2014) and two Super Series titles (China Open in November 2016 and India Open in March-April 2017).
Indian queen
At the India Open World Super Series, which Sindhu won by defeating Olympics champion Carolina Marin, the 21-year-old Hyderabadi girl set the record straight against compatriot Saina Nehwal and Marin. She beat Saina to avenge her straight-game loss in the 2014 Syed Modi Grand Prix final. The victory has also paved the way for Sindhu’s rightful accession to India’s No. 1 woman player, the position Saina had been holding since the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games.
By defeating Marin, Sindhu exacted revenge for her heartbreaking loss to the Spaniard in the Rio Olympics final. Since their title showdown in Rio, Sindhu has met Marin twice and, on both occasions, the Indian has come out trumps. Marin enjoyed a 5-2 head-to-head lead against Sindhu at the end of the Rio Games, but the world No. 5 Indian has since narrowed down the gap to 4-5. The title triumph would also see Sindhu achieve a career-high ranking of world No. 2, surpassing Korea’s Sung Ji Hyun and Marin when the BWF publishes its next rankings list.
Big transformation
Not too long back, Sindhu would often go down fighting in crunch matches owing to her poor fitness levels and inability to last three-setters. But Gopichand and his team of assistant coaches worked hard on this aspect of her game before the Rio Olympics. Since joining the Gopichand Badminton Academy in Gachibowli five years back, physio Kiran Challagundla had been working on increasing Sindhu’s endurance and strength. The real push came four months before the Rio Games. Sindhu would start practising at 4:30am, and her training regimen included shuttle runs, gymming and a lot of running sessions. She was made to do 200 sit-ups and 10km of running each day to build her core and abdominal muscles. Besides, there was a complete ban on junk food and sweets. The hard yards put in by Sindhu showed results in her successful Rio campaign. At the India Open, too, she looked at her best, both in terms of her skills and fitness. Her lightning fast movements, ability to retrieve the shuttle from any corner of the court, stretching to execute net-play and her stamina and endurance were some of the highlights of her successful campaign.
“It’s about working really hard. It’s not about winning or losing, you have to give your best,” said Sindhu. “The ups and downs are part of life, but you will have to come back and train hard. You have to improve yourself and that’s what is really important for me. All you need is to give your 100 percent. Sometimes you might lose, you might win but that’s part of life. Hard work must continue.”
The girl certainly knows how to walk the talk!
