It was a quiet evening in Ipoh, Malaysia. The conversation was about the rise of Indian badminton, at a derelict but extremely popular café that served the city’s best white coffee. The weather was kind as a huge thunder storm had just abated. A breeze blew into the café. In the background, the sky was lit up, there was a hockey match going on at the Azlan Shah Stadium. India and Malaysia, both weren’t playing. So badminton and coffee presented itself as topics for the evening.
My friend was stuck on the past. He had seen the present bunch, especially Kidambi Srikanth, Sai Praneeth and H.S. Prannoy Kumar. But way back in the eighties, when in college, he had a chance to see Prakash Padukone. “It was ballet,” he said. The friend didn’t remember the opponent. “But he brought shuttle to life. Prakash gave it meaning. You never saw him hurry on court. He was calm, composed and those drop shots had the Malaysian fans screaming for more. They loved him in this country.” Back then, badminton wasn’t an Olympic sport. It was included only in the 92’ Barcelona Games. But the conversation gave a glimpse that the past, still in some way, rode ahead of the present bunch, even though India is possibly one of the Asian nations powering itself into the top with players of the calibre of Saina Nehwal, P.V. Sindhu, Srikanth, Praneeth, Prannoy and the junior sensation Lakshya Sen.
Pullela Gopichand sustained the movement with his All-England title and then turned coach. Few top players walk that path and that too with a passion probably greater than what they displayed on court. Many years back, Gopichand in a chat just before Saina hit the headlines said, “I knew players can come out and break into the top ten. But the coaching has to be professional and needs to reflect the badminton of today.” Probably, he didn’t know at that moment of time, but he had unknowingly delivered a scathing critique on the National Institute of Sport (NIS, Patiala) that even today creates coaches who have no understanding of present day sport.
Saina winning the Indonesian Open in June 2009, becoming the first Indian to win a BWF Super Series, title opened the flood gates. It wasn’t that Indian players queued up to win more tournaments but the mind, such a barrier in exploding that myth of winning big, now gave heart to a generation of youngsters conquering titles in distant lands. Beating China’s Wang Lin in the final 12–21, 21–18, 21–9, also created the headline ‘It’s Saina, not China’. Till then, Prakash, Syed Modi, Madhumita Bisht and Ami Ghia were names badminton players aspired and spoke about.
But the push was coming from the Gopichand Badminton Academy. Sindhu, after winning bronze at the World Championships, picked up silver at the Rio Olympics and then emerged Srikanth and Praneeth, picking up Super Series titles. Madhumita Bisht, former National Champion and now coach and a familiar figure on TV when Indian players are playing the Super Series says, “The next few years belongs to Srikanth. In fact, he will be one of the favourites for the Olympic gold in 2020. The quality of strokes, talent, he is just amazing. That Indian touch is there. It’s just unfortunate that things couldn’t come together at the Dubai Super Series Final. But, yes, we expect big things from him now.” Srikanth already has six BWF Super Series titles; quite a stunning path that Indian players have cut since Saina picked up that Indonesian title in 2009. Sindhu, the Olympic silver medallist, has picked up three Super Series titles with silver and two bronze at the World Championships. Sai Praneeth has one Super Series title.
Former World No.7 and national champion Ami Ghia warns against a burnout stretching into the Olympic year. “They really have to work hard to reach that level of fitness,” she says. “But I hope they balance the amount of physical strain they are putting on themselves and they remain injury free as far as it is possible because they have to play long matches at very fast space. And unless you do that, it’s difficult to match the Chinese or other players.”
On December 7th, when BWF released the list of the top 20 men’s singles players, four Chinese had made it to the list. But what gladdened the heart and secured the future of Indian badminton till the Tokyo Olympics was the trio of Indian singles players who were there; an unheard of phenomenon even four years ago. In the women’s rankings, Saina and Sindhu make it, the Chinese have four and the power house that is coming up – Japan has five. So it’s a churn with India, Japan, China and Chinese Taipei leading the mix. In the men’s, of course, Denmark is back on course with the World No.1 ranking with a mix of Indians, South Koreans and Chinese Taipei players.
Srikanth, before heading out for Dubai, said, “I think for a long time Lee Chong Wei and Lin Dan dominated and now it has become more open with me, Viktor, winning tournaments. And there are many other players coming up too. I think it has become more open. So, it is always good for the sports when you have so many champions.”
Gopichand, however, sounds a warning. “Badminton has grown a lot in the last few years,” he says. “It is one of the biggest sports in the country. But going forward will be challenging. It is important that we celebrate the wins, we celebrate that our players who are in top 50, we celebrate that two Indians played in the finals of a Super Series event, we celebrate that we won two medals at the Olympics. But to go ahead and win gold it will not be easy, we have to compete against the best players, we have to compete against the best coaches and system. To win two medals at the 2020 Olympics, that will be the challenge, our players are there in top 30 but to move forward we have to move together as a system.”
Indian badminton is still a fair distance from what sport sometimes calls the making of the ‘invincibles’. The Indian prototypes of Lin Dan and Lee Ching Wei are still in the making. But the heartening part is Indian badminton no more relies on champions coming once in a while and then fading away. Gopichand, a badminton meteor flashing across Indian skies has made sure there is an assembly line of champions ready to break into the top rungs regularly; to have a shot at invincibility. Probably, then, somewhere in a café in Ipoh, they would argue about the sublime skills of Srikanth, with Prakash a pleasant but distant memory.
