Point of View: World title an ode to P.V. Sindhu’s consistency
It remains to be seen if Indian shuttler has peaked too early for Tokyo 2020 Games
Dubai: Achieving big targets requires attention to detail, and Indian badminton star P.V. Sindhu has delivered exactly that.
The 24-year-old Hyderabadi didn’t want to make it third time unlucky.
With coach Pullela Gopichand in her corner, she decimated her Japanese opponent Nozomi Okuhara in a blitzy 38 minutes at Basel, Switzerland.
The world crown is an ode to her consistency at the very top echelons of the game.
Looking ahead, Sindhu will have her fair bit of challenges, the major one being the concern that she may be peaking at the wrong time if she is to convert her 2016 Rio silver into gold at Tokyo 2020.
Sunday’s gold medal — in the birthplace of tennis legend Roger Federer — adorned Sindhu with yet another accomplishment as she joined former Olympic champion Zhang Ning of China as the highest women’s singles medal winner at the World Championships with an identical five medals (one gold, two silver and bronze each).
Tokyo gold the logical conclusion
The Olympic cycle is now in full swing and, going by her past performances, I doubt anyone would think that Sindhu will not be standing on the podium steps in Tokyo. She’s got rid of her hoodoo of failing in finals on big stages.
Besides the newly acquired self-belief and confidence, Sindhu will now have the luxury to do things without too much scrutiny.
A look at her past achievements reveals she first entered the semi-final of the World Championships when she was only 18 and the last four when she was 19.
When she played that remarkable final against Spaniard Carolina Marin, Sindhu was only 21. At 22, she was in the final of the World Championships and replicated the feat last year — falling short at the final hurdle on both occasions.
Sindhu created history in 2018 by becoming the first Indian to win the season-ending BWF World Tour Finals without losing a single match in the group stages.
And now, at 24, she is a world champion.
A gold at Tokyo Olympics may well be the logical conclusion!