Indian badminton courting success in style

Let’s face it: the expectation level among Indian fans has reached so high that every time a P.V. Sindhu or Saina Nehwal take to the courts in international events these days, a final or semis showing seems quite par for the course. No wonder their early exits at the ongoing Japan Open at the hands of all-too-familiar opponents is being looked upon as an aberration of sorts.

Is India, the cricket country, then witnessing a badminton revolution of sorts? It may still be presumptuous to say so, but with the growing list of players who have been leaving their footprint on the international arena — with the Hyderabad pair at the forefront of this journey — there is good enough reason to believe it’s certainly the sport for the future.

While common wisdom has it that India’s hopes in the international arena always lay in individual sport, the legacy of such achievements is a chequered one. If badminton threw up a Prakash Padukone or Pulella Gopichand out of nowhere, tennis had Vijay Amritraj or the Leander Paes-Mahesh Bhupathi combine only many years later, while the country ended an agonising wait for its first individual gold in Olympics, thanks to shooter Abhinav Bindra.

Yes, shooting deserves a special mention here for providing an assembly line of top flight performers at the Asian and world level, but the success story of two girls in badminton trying to break through the Chinese bastion has certainly captured the public imagination for quite some time now. If Saina had been the trailblazer by becoming the first Olympic medallist in her sport in London 2012 with a bronze, Sindhu went a step further with the silver at the Rio Olympics, but more importantly — with the latter maintaining a stunning performance graph in the past one year.

The rise of Kidambi Srikanth, another of the Gopichand proteges, over the last four years had been complementary to the overall scenario — while the likes of Parupalli Kashyap, H.S. Prannoy and Ajay Jayaram had been pleasant additions to the landscape. Srikanth had, earlier this year, ensured that it was not just the women who stole the thunder by landing two back-to-back Super Series titles and looks very much a strong contender for a berth in IBF World Series Finals in Dubai later this year.

The success story so far, by and large, has its genesis in the hermitage-like ambience of the Gopichand Badminton Academy in Hyderabad. In a recent interview, the soft-spoken taskmaster Gopichand has revealed his plans of opening up a number of academies across the country to spread his philosophy — though that cannot be a recipe alone for producing another Saina or Sindhu.

The single-mindedness of these two athletes — despite all the trappings of success around them (read: endorsements, special appearances and now biopics) — had been nothing short of extraordinary. The knee surgery that Saina went through after a heartbreaking campaign in Rio, which saw even her coach Vimal Kumar failing to put a date to her comeback plans, would have destroyed the morale of anyone with lesser willpower.

Hence it’s been extremely heartening to see Saina back in competition and end up with a bronze at the World Championships in Glasgow last month. The stories of Sindhu — the back-breaking regimen, having no access to her cellphone during the final two months ahead of Rio last year — are also public knowledge now.

At only 22 years, Sindhu certainly has her best years ahead of her.

Saina, now 27, has decided to have a final go by re-uniting with her guru Gopichand and relocating back to her hometown Hyderabad.

There could still be some more exciting times for Indian badminton …