Asian Badminton Championship: Reality check on the shuttle train

While 2017 gave India a bulk of Super Series titles and a historic World Championship, 2018 could throw into stark relief just how much ground India has to cover before being considered an all-round badminton behemoth.

Every team event – and this season is full of them with the CWG, Asiad, Thomas & Uber Cup and starting with the ongoing Badminton Asia Team Championship (BATC) – should sober down the dizzying narrative that has built around this sport of genuine, consistent top-class achievements the whole of last year. India’s best foot forward might be stepped upon at every juncture over the next few months.

And it will be the Japanese women – not unlike 2017 – who will look to hammer home the reality and prick the ballooning myth of India having attained superpower status. Indian women, led by PV Sindhu and Ashwini Ponappa-Sikki Reddy, will go up against Japan in the quarterfinals on Thursday attempting to qualify for the Uber Cup later in the summer. Saina Nehwal is out with a strained groin, but even with her in the mix, India would have faced a steep challenge in getting past the all-round proficiency of the Japanese (They are at Kedah, Malaysia, with three of the Top six ranked women’s doubles pairings as well as the singles World and Super Series Finals champion).

Mercifully, head coach Pullela Gopichand has never bought into the tag of superpower-dom – just yet, always tempering those claims, and he will stay resolute while attempting to max the results from what is at his disposal.

India have used Sindhu strategically in team events – getting her to carry the confidence of her roiling solo wins and chanelling that swagger into the second doubles. But the formula to advance against most teams remains two singles wins and a doubles in the 5-match ties. So it was when India edged Hong Kong China 3-2 on Tuesday with Sindhu winning both her singles and doubles (alongside Sikki Reddy), and Ruthvika Shivani Gadde shrugging off an indifferent second game to return with a bang in a tense decider.

Sindhu would start with a 21-12, 21-18 swatting of Yin Yip Pui. India, expecting the top HK pair of Poon-Tse (World No 28), had split their own lead pairing of Ashwini and Sikki, getting Prajakta Sawant to combine with the former for the first doubles. While the Indians traded close 22-20 scorelines in the first two games, they’d run out of steam in the third. Sri Krishna Priya had done well to drag her opponent into the third and led 19-16 against Cheung Ying Mei in the decider, but allowed nerves to trample over her as India trailed 1-2.

It was here that the scratch pair of Sindhu-Sikki would pull one back, with Sindhu dragging her partner away from some jittery points in the second game to win 21-15, 15-21, 21-14. Ruthvika Gadde – who had played the key fourth match the last time the Indians qualified, stuttered owing to the pressure. “It was the fourth match last time and not the decider. I’d played without much pressure because it was my first Uber Cup. This time I was feeling a bit nervous as it was the decider,” she said later.

Against Sum Yee Yeung – someone, if not for the occasion, she’d be looking to down in straight games – Ruthvika would start out struggling with the whimsical drift. She’d settle down as the match progressed but having lost the opener 16-21, she would bring a second bout of pressure upon herself before she asserted her class to claim the next two 21-16, 21-13 in little under an hour.

India might not be blessed with the depth in women’s badminton, but there’s no dearth of spunk that has seen them make podiums at team events in the past – even if it’s bronze. The perennial groan remains India’s doubles, though it was India’s specialist doubles coach Malaysian Tan Kim Her who’d helped devise a way in the last Sudirman Cup mixed team campaign to attain some surprise results.

Coach Tan has been in India since 2016, but it should be apparent by now that the might of the Chinese, Japanese, Indonesians, Danes or Koreans was not built in a matter of months. Success in doubles takes a long time to brew, and though every team event will throw up India’s weakness as an eyesore, the mere intent to improve in a discipline that relies on speedy reflexes and incredible power might need to be nursed for many years before efforts yield results.

Still, Sindhu has proved to be a good bridge from singles to doubles stomping forth on mere confidence and her not-too-shabby skill-set of body defence and general ability to hog at all shuttles thrown at her. Sindhu might not be the best equipped to deal with the bazooka-fast flat drives that are exchanged in women’s doubles, but she tends to carry her grit in not giving away easy points into the doubles.

Against Japan, India would want to give Ashwini-Sikki – their first-choice pairing – a go, though India has Sanyogita Ghorpade and Mithula to throw into the mix to combine with Prajakta Sawant. But with the Japanese having arrived with their best pairings, Sindhu might just show up again and be seen fending shuttles sent down the centre, hoping for her aggression to take India home.

“She’s actually a good doubles player because she communicates well and doesn’t get flustered. Even today she kept calm and soaked the pressure for both of us,” Sikki said, after there had been a fair number of mix-ups as the left-right combine took time to settle. The two have played together since junior years, but it’s a start all over again every time they’re thrown in together at a top team event. “It’s just that with her on court, I know she brings the big-match nerves and can weather the pressure,” Sikki said. Indian men thrashed Philippines 5-0, and will play Indonesia – bolstered by recent successes in singles – on Thursday.

No Kits

Meanwhile, India’s tardy administration risks incurring a heavy fine if co-ordinated kits do not reach the Indian team by Thursday. The team left for Malaysia without the official kitting gear, and manager Maqdoom spent the whole of Tuesday trying to get the local Yonex dealer to deliver the team’s official playing Tees on time.

Should the team show up in their disjointed kits for the quarters – players have different sponsors and it’s not as simple as buying matching coloured uppers, and hence need the official kitting – they will be heavily fined.

This is not the first time the Indian team has left without proper kitting. “Last year at the Sudirman Cup also, this had happened and we were running around to get our kits. If the federation orders all players to play the team events, they should at least ensure our kitting is in place. It’s such an unnecessary headache,” one player with the team said.

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