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PV Sindhu, the solitary reaper in Indian badminton

Updated on: 05 September,2016 03:41 PM IST  | 
Sanjay Sharma | sports@mid-day.com

Rio Olympics silver medallist may be India's only hope for success in badminton with Saina Nehwal out of action for the next three months. What makes it all the more discouraging is that the bench strength is not strong enough

PV Sindhu, the solitary reaper in Indian badminton

Now that the most welcome hoopla post PV Sindhu's magnificent achievements at Rio are getting over, it is perhaps the right time to take stock of the current state of Indian badminton and ask where do we go from here.


PV Sindhu celebrates on the podium after receiving the silver medal at the Rio Olympics recently. Pic/Getty Images
PV Sindhu celebrates on the podium after receiving the silver medal at the Rio Olympics recently. Pic/Getty Images


For starters, one hopes that Sindhu continues her great run and plays with confidence and consistency, which apart from the Olympics, we saw just once before when she gatecrashed to the finals of the Denmark open Super Series in 2015, blowing away on world beaters like Tai Tzu-ying of Chinese Taipei, Wang Yihan of China (Sindhu incidentally defeated both of these shuttlers at Rio also), and the then reigning world champion Carolina Marin of Spain. Sindhu lost to Li Xuerui. The tall Indian star had of course made a name for herself when she had defeated Xuerui, fresh from her London Olympics victory, at the 2012 China masters.


Barring Wang Shixian, another formidable Chinese, Sindhu has defeated all other current top stars. She has not played Saina Nehwal in any National or BWF event so far and it will be interesting to see both battling out after Saina Nehwal is back in action.

Can Sindhu be consistent?
Sindhu has enough events to consolidate her position in world rankings with six super series left in the year starting with Japan and Korean opens in September and ending with the China and Hong Kong opens in November. One hopes consistent performances will get her an entry among the top eight ranked players in the super series finals at Dubai, where the biggest ever purse of one million USD awaits the top players.

With Saina out of action for three months, Sindhu may well be the only Indian to qualify for Dubai. Barring these two queens of Indian badminton, hardly any other Indian shuttler can be termed as a world beater. The bench strength is just not there and the scene is not encouraging at all.

Let us see where our other players stand in world ranks to give an indication where Indian badminton stands today. After Saina at fifth spot (at the time of writing) and Sindhu at 10th, our next ranker is Tanvi Lad at 79, followed by Ruthvika Shivan in 84th place. In the women's doubles category, after Jwala Gutta/Ashwini Ponnappa at 22, the next duo of Maneesha/Sikki Reddy are 86th.

Men's scene equally bad
The men's doubles has Rio returnees Manu Attri/Sumeeth Reddy at 21 followed by Jerry Chopra/Akshay Dewalkar at 29. The next pairs are at the 61st and 82nd spots. In men's singles we have five players in the top 50, led by Kidambi Srikanth at 11, but none of our players are showing the required consistency that will propel Indian badminton to superpower status.

Saina remains our most consistent performer on the world stage till date. The Badminton Association of India (BAI) and the National coach must devise strategies to ensure that we have enough and strong bench strength in all events as early as possible.

We have the finance, talent and infrastructure but a middle to long term plan is urgently needed if India is to step into the shoes of badminton superpowers like China, Korea, Japan, Denmark etc. By 2018, the Thomas/Uber cups, the CWG and Asian games will be held, and Indian badminton should not be left wanting. The thrust given by PV Sindhu at Rio must be exploited to the hilt.

The writer is a former India player

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