Sindhu ready to step up as India goes badminton crazy
GOLD COAST, April 4 (NsNewsWire) — India’s flag bearer Pusarla Venkata Sindhu knows what pressure is. Badminton may not be quite as popular as cricket in India but plenty of the 1.3 billion population adore the sport and follow every shot its favourite female shuttler hits.
In recent years Sindhu has become the first Indian badminton player to win three world championship medals and the youngest ever Indian to win an Olympic medal. It is quite a roll call and one that naturally makes her the major Commonwealth Games medal hope for the world’s second most populous nation.
“Pressure and responsibility is always there, but you just have to play your game and give your best,” Sindhu says.
“You don’t have to take on that pressure. I know people expect a lot from you but it’s not so hard to deal with it.”
It is a wonderfully admirable response from the 2017 world championship silver medal winner and the 2013 and 2014 world championship bronze medallist. But despite such nonchalance and her coach, Pullela Gopichand’s best efforts to shield his star charge from the overwhelming level of attention bestowed upon her, Sindhu does admit that ‘life has changed a lot’ since she won silver at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
The now-22 year-old beat the current world number one Tai Tzu Ying on her way to the gold medal match in Rio de Janeiro and was one game away from taking the title. It was quite an achievement from the 1.79m tall woman who had been told throughout her career that she was too tall to be a great badminton player.
It was also an endorsement of some quite extreme pre-Olympic Games measures from coach Gopichand.
“It’s true, I didn’t have my cell phone for three months and for sure no junk or oily food,” Sindhu laughs. “It was not something I regretted, it was for my own good, so I went with it and I came back with the silver medal, so it worked.”
Sindhu’s main rivals for gold next week are likely to be familiar faces. At the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games Sindhu was beaten in the semifinals by Canada’s Michelle Li, who went on to defeat Scot Kirsty Gilmour in the final.
“They are good players, it’s not easy to play against them,” Sindhu says. “You have to have a strategy. You just can’t play easy and think you will win easily.
“They have good strengths, but between us whoever gives their best on the day (will win) it depends on that, we are so close.”
