Super Shuttler | P.V. Sindhu

Five years ago, P.V. Sindhu’s silver medal at the Rio Games was the saving grace of India’s otherwise dismal campaign. Back then, the shuttler was the underdog; this time around, she is the reigning World Champion. For Operation Rio, Sindhu switched off her phone for months; Mission Tokyo is “completely the opposite”, she says with a laugh. She has her phone by her side, but not coach Pullela Gopichand. That role is now played by South Korea’s former shuttler, Park Tae-sang. “Change is not compulsory but it is good,” she says about the switch. “Every coach offers a new mindset and game style.” In the many interviews she has given in the run-up to the Olympics, she appears at ease and sure of her abilities. Winning does that to an athlete. “I am more confident,” she tells india today. But will it be enough for her to become only the second Indian athlete, after the now infamous wrestler Sushil Kumar, to win back-to-back Olympic medals?

If you’ve seen her training at the Gachibowli Stadium in Hyderabad, you’d have your hopes up. That’s where Sindhu has been based since February, its size allowing her to grow comfortable with the drift and shuttle speed in a large indoor stadium, which will be a critical factor in the mammoth fortress of Tokyo’s Musashino Forest Sport Plaza. Her days at Gachibowli begin at 7 am. There are days when Tae-sang takes the court himself, sending shuttles to all corners of the court at varying speeds for her to retrieve; on others, male players from the nearby Suchitra Badminton Academy line up to hit their hardest smashes against the world #7. (Sindhu’s last title came at the World Championships in August 2019, after which her ranking has slipped from five to seven.) Tae-sang varies her opponents, sometimes making her play against two players at one go. “It is good to play against players with different strokes,” says Sindhu of her intense regimen which includes weight training and running. “If you want to improve, you have to play against high standard players.”

Competition, though, has been a major issue for shuttlers during the pandemic. April and May saw tournaments cancelled, leaving Kidambi Srikanth and Saina Nehwal unable to compete and earn the points necessary to qualify for Tokyo. Sindhu is one of just four Indian shuttlers to have made the cut—the others are Sai Praneeth (men’s) and Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy (men’s doubles). But India’s hopes will be pinned on its most famous sportswoman. “There is more pressure now compared to 2016,” she says. “Now it’s like ‘wherever Sindhu goes, we need a medal’. It is not going to be easy.”

The field is missing one of her biggest rivals and Rio champion, Spain’s Carolina Marin, but is still daunting. There’s world #1 Tai Tzu-ying and Thailand’s Ratchanok Intanon, whose nifty shot-making is wondrous to behold; Japan’s Nozomi Okuhara and Akane Yamaguchi who are indefatigable, and the Chinese players, Chen Yu Fei and He Bing Jiao, who know how to rise to the occasion. Sindhu’s toughest competitor has been Tzu-ying, who has a 13:5 edge over her. For Sindhu, the previous matches won’t be a decisive factor given that a long tour break has allowed players to “add new skills and technique”. Also, it’s the Olympics—a stage that can rattle the nerves of even the best.

Sindhu is all too familiar with the feeling. She has lived with the reputation of having what she describes as “finals phobia”. Questions have been raised about her ability to deliver when it matters most. She says she doesn’t let the detractors get to her. “Dealing with losses is tough,” she says. “In the back of my mind, I did think ‘What is happening?’ But when I’m in the finals, I don’t carry the baggage of earlier losses.” Winning the BWF World Tour Finals in 2018 was a turning point. The next year, she followed it up with the World Championship title, her first gold and her fifth World Championship medal.

In Tokyo, Sindhu’s coach and her physiotherapist Evangeline Baddam will be by her side. “She is improving every day,” says Tae-sang. “We are trying to improve her confidence too.” Another loud supporter—and the most excited when she returns home after a hard day’s work—is Rio, her eight-month-old Labrador. It’s a running joke within her circle that if she wins in Tokyo, she should get another pet. “My mother says one is enough,” laughs Sindhu. But could anyone deny a two-time Olympic medalist her wish?

read the full story about Super Shuttler | P.V. Sindhu

#theheadlines #breakingnews #headlinenews #newstoday #latestnews #aajtak #ndtv #timesofindia #indiannews