Dubai: Indian badminton star P.V. Sindhu wants a medal at this month’s Commonwealth Games in order to follow in the footsteps of her teammate Saina Nehwal.
Last week’s Australian Open winner Nehwal, 24, won a gold medal in the women’s singles at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi before going on to become the first Indian to win a medal in badminton at the Olympics with a bronze medal in 2012.
Sindhu, 18, is Nehwal’s nearest national rival as she is just two places behind her in the Badminton World Federation (BWF) world rankings in tenth. After becoming the first Indian female to win a medal at the World Championships with a bronze medal in Guangzhou, China, last year, she is now looking to build on that this summer — and close the gap on Nehwal — with a good showing in Glasgow, Scotland, from July 23 to August 3.
“I try to be more successful than her,” Sindhu said of Nehwal on the sidelines of the Shuttle Time Dubai launch at Dubai Sports World on Tuesday. “She’s a good, experienced player and there are many things to learn from her. But I hope I can be more successful than her.
“She won a bronze medal at the Olympics, which makes bettering her very tough, but with hard work success comes automatically.
“On the court there’s always rivalry, it’s either me or her, but off court — from my point of view — we’re just normal.”
Sindhu pointed to forthcoming events as an ideal opportunity to stake a claim to India’s top spot.
“We have aims and we build upon our aims,” she said. “I was really happy when I won a bronze medal at the World Championships last year. But now the upcoming events are the Commonwealth Games, World Championships and Asian Games and I hope to get a medal in those.
“This will be my first Commonwealth Games and I’m really looking forward to it. If I play well, nothing is impossible. Ultimately whoever gives 100 per cent and plays well on the day is the winner.”
With Sindhu and Nehwal both hailing from the Gopichand Academy in Hyderabad, Sindhu credited her coach and former world No 5 Pullela Gopichand for badminton’s rise in India.
“I think badminton in India is growing up,” she said. “There used to be just my coach [Gopichand] and [former World No 1] Prakash Padukone, who became the first Indian to win a medal at the World Championship [a bronze in 1983].
“But now there are many junior players coming through and in the coming years I expect more boys to be doing as well [as the girls], thanks to the coaches at the Gopichand Academy.”
Sindhu also praised last year’s introduction of the six-franchise Indian Badminton League (IBL) for boosting badminton, India’s fastest growing sport, which is second only to cricket in terms of participation.
“That really helped. It was good recognition for badminton and the format was very popular with the crowd. I think the fact it’s a fast-paced sport with a quick best-of-five turnover makes it great for the spectator.”
