Jan 13, 2025 08:15 PM IST
Irwansyah Adi Pratama has been appointed coach for India’s women’s badminton team, including PV Sindhu, as BAI focuses on group training for improvement.
New Delhi: Indonesia’s Irwansyah Adi Pratama has taken charge of the Indian women’s singles shuttlers and been coaching PV Sindhu and others at the national camp in Bengaluru from the new year.
It was confirmed that Irwansyah will only coach the women players while another foreign coach is in talks to be hired for the men’s singles group in a week or so.
“We will also be bringing on board Indian coaches to train and spar with our top shuttlers. Former players like Manu Attri have already joined the setup and started coaching our top doubles players,” Badminton Association of India (BAI) secretary general Sanjay Mishra said on Monday.
Irwansyah, a former Indonesia head coach, is credited for the rise of former Asian champion Anthony Sinisuka Ginting and reigning All England champion Jonatan Christie. His stint at home ended in December after he fell out with the Badminton Association of Indonesia (PBSI) over neither Christie nor Ginting making it past the group stage at last year’s Paris Olympics. In India, Irwansyah has replaced compatriot Agus Dwi Santoso.
After the previous Olympics cycle when most of India’s top shuttlers had personal coaches, BAI wants to encourage group training under one head coach for each category. For instance, Malaysian coach Tan Kim Her — he is known for pairing up Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty — was brought back last month as the doubles head coach to replace Dane Mathias Boe.
“We have spoken to the players and they have all agreed to training in a group,” Mishra said.
The step on joint training was taken after the Paris Olympics where for the first time in the last four Games, Indian badminton players failed to win a medal. “It is good for others and also good for me. They spar and make it difficult for me. It will be like a conference where they are also improving and so am I competing against each other.”
Top seed Shi Yu Qi pulls out
Former world No.1 Kidambi Srikanth and Kiran George were added to the men’s singles draw of the India Open starting on Tuesday following the late withdrawal of top seed Shi Yu Qi of China and eighth seed Antony Ginting.
Lakshya Sen takes Ginting’s place in the draw and will face Lin Chun-yi of Chinese Taipei in the opener. Srikanth will take on China’s Weng Hongyang while Kiran George will open his campaign against Yushi Tanaka of Japan.
In the women’s singles draw, Sindhu will move to Busanan Ongbamrungphan’s place and face Sung Shuo-yun of Chinese Taipei in the first round.
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