With the Olympic Games looming and the Race to Paris heating up, the focus of most top players is participate in more and more tournaments, win matches, earn ranking points and make the cut before the April 30 cutoff date.
Badminton and wrestling are the only two disciplines that have brought India medals in the last three Olympics with the former contributing one silver and two bronze. But chief national coach Pullela Gopichand believes the right way to approach the Games is not to focus on the Olympics but on the process.
“As a coach, it’s important that you keep pushing the players and expect more from them. Yes, we had a great 2023, had some very good wins whether it’s the World Championships or Asian Games. This year the big one is the Olympics. Hopefully, we can get a big contingent there and win some medals,” Gopichand said here on Tuesday.
“But Olympics is still a long way. There are still about eight tournaments left. I don’t think it’s right to go after that as a player. It’s too much pressure unnecessarily to start thinking about the Race to Paris as a primary role. It’s important to stick to the process. Points, rankings and qualification will take care of itself. That’s how I would want the players to look at it.”
Asked about the goals of 2024 apart from Paris, the former All England champion has a lot of belief in Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, who had a phenomenal 2023 where they also became the first Indian pair to become world No.1.
“Satwik-Chirag have been phenomenal. Their rise and attitude towards the sport, the way they have pushed themselves has been fantastic. They have it in them to win every tournament in the world. They go in as favorites. I hope they will be able to convert the big ones,” said the chief coach on the sidelines of the $850,000 India Open.
“As far as men’s singles is concerned, whether it’s Lakshya (Sen), (HS) Prannoy, (Kidambi) Srikanth, Priyanshu (Rajawat) or the younger players, they have it in them. It’s just that they’ve been quite inconsistent at times last year. 2022 was worse apart from Lakshya. Hopefully, they have good health and continue giving good performances.”
The question of who next after Saina Nehwal and PV Sindhu has been bothering Indian badminton for quite some time with no one of the same calibre in addition to Sindhu’s dip in form. But the 50-year-old remains positive.
“With Sindhu coming back, we have some prospect there. A bunch of youngsters have been doing well. We have a sub-junior player who won the Senior Nationals (Anmol Kharb). We have another 15-year-old (Tanvi Sharma) in the finals. So we have some young talent coming up the ranks. I’m hoping that in the next couple of years, we’ll actually be able to showcase some good women’s singles (players) as well,” he said.
In women’s doubles, Tanisha Crasto and Ashwini Ponnappa, who decided to partner early last year, have seen a dramatic rise in the last season, playing five finals, winning three. Last week, they also stunned twice former world champions Mayu Matsumoto and Wakana Nagahara at the Malaysia Open. Gopichand’s daughter Gayatri, partnering Treesa Jolly, are the second highest ranked pair at No.22 behind Tanisha and Ashwini (No.20).
“Between both of them, hopefully we’ll have some good performances in the years to come. Tanisha, Treesa and Gayatri are all around 20. I’m positive about their future. But what happens in an Olympic year is that all the talk is about Olympics. I can go around the bush but everybody is asking how many medals,” he concluded.
