Badminton
Jonathan Selvaraj, ESPN 6y

Indian badminton's poor start to 2018 not cause for alarm yet

Badminton

A glance at Saturday's order of play at the India Open World Tour Super 500 made for unpleasant reading if you were an Indian badminton fan.

The Indian representation in the singles event was reduced to PV Sindhu in the women's singles. The last representative of the men's singles - Sameer Verma - had been ousted on Friday evening by Malaysian Iskandar Zulkarnain. Verma's exit at the quarterfinals had followed that of Parupalli Kashyap and B Sai Praneeth, who had fallen at the same stage.

Kidambi Srikanth had lost a day earlier, while HS Prannoy had exited in the first round itself. For the Indian's men's contingent, the result appears to be a significant fall from the highs of the previous year, where they had won five Superseries titles (four for Srikanth and another for Sai Praneeth) and regularly made the semi-final stage.

After three World Tour 500 events - the equivalent of Superseries tournaments - this year, no Indian men's singles player has advanced past the quarter-final. The Indian Open result appears to be particularly disappointing owing to the fact the tournament field was an under-strength one after the pullout of top seed Viktor Axelsen and the absence of the Japanese and Korean contingents.

With only Sindhu remaining, it seems almost a throwback to a time Indian badminton had hoped to have left behind. India might have wanted to carry on from their momentum of the previous year, yet in what is a significant year - featuring both the Commonwealth and Asian Games - the country's players find themselves having to pick themselves up from the ground.

Yet, while this looks bad, players and coaches say it's too early to be pressing the panic button. Despite a less than stellar start, coach Pullela Gopichand says it is important not to lose sight of the big picture.

"There are a lot of big events this year but for us the two primary events are the CWG and Asian Games. From a player perspective we need to put our heads down and hope we can do well in these big events," Gopichand says.

"Winning tournaments is secondary. That will happen by itself. Right now it is about training properly, eating correctly and thinking properly. Learning new things and adapting new techniques. That is more important than medals and rankings. I don't think you should bother so much about that. If the progression is on the right track, then the result happens as well."

There are caveats and positives to the Indian performances. Prannoy had no business playing the tournament considering he had suffered a freak injury -- a painful corn in his foot. Srikanth, too, was making his return to competition following an abdominal strain which had an effect on his performance.

Srikanth's blistering run last year had a lot to do with his incredible speed and his much improved stamina. Against Zulqarnain, it was clear that his fitness was still not at an elite level. "Right now I have no complaints about how I played," Srikanth said after his loss. "I'm just glad that I am just back on court once again."

Neither Prannoy nor Srikanth's injuries are particularly threatening, which suggests they will only get better once they return to active competition. On the other hand, India could still teak heart from the performance of Verma, who had suffered a shoulder injury that had marred most of his previous year.

Before his loss to Zulqarnain, Verma had picked up two impressive wins against former World Championship bronze medalist Tommy Sugiarto and the seventh seed Anders Antonsen. Despite not advancing to the weekend rounds, Verma is grateful simply to be playing, crediting his turnaround to a less intensive training routine.

"The most important thing is to stay injury free. The less injured I am, the better. The performance will be good if the fitness is there," Verma said.

It's an assessment that Sai Praneeth, who also had two hard-fought wins in the tournament, agrees with.

"I wouldn't say that we have suddenly come down in our performance. We had a good year last year also. As long as we keep following the right processes, we will get the results," he said. 

Indeed, India could possibly take heart from the fact that the players have been through this before. The Indian performance at the India Open this year uncannily matches the results at the same tournament last year. In 2017 too, Prannoy lost in the first round, Srikanth in the second and both Sameer Verma and Praneeth in the quarters. The months that followed would be amongst the greatest for the men's singles events in India. The players must certainly hope that history repeats itself once again.

^ Back to Top ^