There’s something missing at the ongoing India Open here. For the first time since 2007, both Saina Nehwal and PV Sindhu – flag-bearers of Indian badminton in the last decade-and-a-half – are not playing at the annual event.
While Saina is in the twilight of her career, Sindhu has been reeling with injuries and a drastic dip in form in the last 18 months. The double Olympic medallist’s last title came at the 2022 Commonwealth Games. She has not just lost to almost all top players but also regularly made first round exits.
To resurrect her career with the Paris Olympics looming, the 2019 world champion has been trying out many things. First, she split with Korean coach Park Tae-sang at the start of last year before training with Sports Authority of India’s (SAI) Vidhi Chaudhary. She then brought on board Malaysia’s former All England champion Muhammad Hafiz Hashim in July 2023 to coach. With that too not working, she decided to train under former great Prakash Padukone.
Since Hashim, who initially travelled to Bengaluru with Sindhu just before the Hangzhou Asian Games, belonged to Suchitra Academy in Hyderabad where Sindhu would go for physical training, a new coach was brought in around the New Year as Sindhu, like Saina, moved base to Bengaluru in the first week of January.
Indonesian former India singles coach Agus Dwi Santoso has joined Sindhu’s team as the world No.11 begins her bid to claim a third Olympic medal.
Sindhu has rented an apartment in the hostel complex of the Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy (PPBA), which operates out of the Padukone–Dravid Centre for Sports Excellence just north of Bengaluru.
“Sindhu started training with Agus about 10 days back. Of course, Prakash is sitting during her sessions, trying to help her out in different aspects. Prakash monitors her sessions and gives advice on the technical and tactical aspects,” PPBA head coach and national selector U Vimal Kumar said.
Sindhu’s last tournament was the French Open last October, where she retired in the second round due to a knee niggle. She then decided to take a break.
“She had a strain on her left knee. She had a plaster. Now she tapes it. The physio, the whole team are working with her. She didn’t show any discomfort while training as she was doing a good recovery programme in Hyderabad. Now it is time to train,” said Vimal.
A decade ago, Saina decided to move from the Pullela Gopichand Badminton Academy (PGBA) in Hyderabad to PPBA. Under Vimal, Saina became the first Indian to reach the World Championships final and made the All England final in 2015. She also became the first Indian woman to reach world No.1.
“Sindhu needs to take a little more initiative because she suddenly has gone a little defensive. If the opponent plays a slow game, she will also slow down her game. If the opponent is playing fast, she will try to cope,” said Vimal. “There was no initiative like playing at the net, creating opportunities, going on the attack. Prakash’s inputs will help because he can convey those things to her.”
Sindhu will make a comeback at the Badminton Asia Team Championships in Malaysia’s Shah Alam from February 13-18. “We can really gauge where Sindhu is at when she returns to the court. She will get good match practice. That can help her at the European circuit in March. She needs some wins. Eventually it is all about confidence.”
While her compatriots are focussed on qualifying for the Olympics, making the cut for Paris is not a concern for Sindhu. As world No.11, the 28-year-old is all but assured of a spot as the closest Indian is Aakarshi Kashyap at No.41. Unless Aakarshi wins 3-4 Super 500 or higher level events, she won’t displace Sindhu.
“The main thing will be to beat the four top players because her contemporaries have also slightly declined, be it (Akane) Yamaguchi or Ratchanok (Intanon) or (Nozomi) Okuhara, even though Yamaguchi can still be tricky,” Vimal said.
“I am looking at Chen Yufei, An Se Young, Carolina Marin and Tai Tzu Ying. Carolina too it depends on whether she recovers because she has had too many injuries. An Se Young is a notch above while the others are at the same level. If Sindhu can beat them in the coming tournaments that will give her that added confidence.”
Sindhu has not beaten Olympic champion Chen and Asian champion Tai Tzu since 2019 while her last win over three-time world champion Carolina Marin goes back to 2018. Her head-to-head against world champion An Se Young is 0-6.
Sindhu though is backed by Tai Tzu. “You have also see that Sindhu has been injured on and off. She was playing well when she got injured, recovered, returned and got injured again. She played in between injuries, which is why she lost. She has not been able to completely recover from injuries,” said the Taiwan star, who beat China’s Gao Fang Jie 21-14, 21-18 to enter the second round of the Super 750 event here on Wednesday.
