On 25 August 2019, the two-time silver medallist Sindhu became the first Indian to win the World Championships gold in Badminton. The 24-year-old Sindhu’s road to success at the BWF World Championships was more than just her gameplay. It is the story of years of hard work that brought glory to the shuttler who simply loves her game, believes in herself and gives 100 per cent to Badminton.

Speaking to ANJU GROVER who met her on behalf of Indian Currents, the Delhi-based socio-political weekly, and The Teenager Today, P. V. Sindhu says her priority now is to win the elusive Olympic gold in Tokyo, next year.

Excerpts from a brief interview:

What’s your reaction to your historic win in the World Badminton championships? Were you confident of victory in the final game as you outclassed Nozomi Okuhara of Japan?
I played with confidence. I am very happy with the win. I had prepared myself for the game which I do for every game. Every match was very important for me from the very first match. I gave my 100 per cent. For me, each round was important.

What is your top priority?
My immediate target is to do well in three to four tournaments in China and Korea as this is the qualifying year for the quadrennial extravaganza. Winning a medal in Olympics is my top priority now.

Have the expectations of people become more?
The expectations were always high because people would want you to remain at the top all the time. You have to chase the target, work hard and give your best.

Your victory has brought laurels to India. Do you think, things for young badminton players would become better in the country?
Yes, definitely things will change and become better. Now, India has got a recognition at the international level in Badminton. The resources are growing. Also, lots of youngsters are coming forward to take up badminton as a sport. We are now getting support from various quarters including the government.

Do you think that more emphasis should be given to badminton and more facilities should be provided to upcoming young players, and that infrastructure should be increased?
Efforts are being made by the government through various programmes like Khelo India to promote Badminton. At the grassroots level, efforts are also made to encourage students to join any sport of their choice. This will help students to decide if they want to make a career in sports. Promoting sports from the grassroots level is a very good idea.

Cricket is the most popular sport in India and it is played almost everywhere. No other game has got support like cricket in India…
Things have changed now. Players are doing well in other sports like Badminton. In 2016, wrestler Sakshi Malik had won bronze medal in Olympics. So it’s just not cricket, every sport is doing equally good.

Who would you give credit for your victory… parents or coach?
The credit for my victory was not just my hard work but strong support of my parents and hard work of my coach, and others who supported me. My father has sacrificed a lot.

You have got financial support from your parents. Saina Nehwal too got support from her parents. But not all sportswomen, especially those from small towns, can afford or get such support.
The government is coming forward to help sportswomen from small towns. It’s not that everybody is born rich. But everybody should work hard to create a place for themselves in their chosen game. Programmes like Khelo India are helping players to do well. At grassroots level it is compulsory to take part in some sport activity. That’s how a few of them who could not afford have also performed well.

What tips would you give to young sportspersons that they too can win medals in international championships and Olympic Games?
You should love your sport. You need to love what you want to achieve. When you want to achieve something in your career, you should always do it with a lot of interest. You will have to make lot of sacrifices, as well. You must believe in yourself… and hope that you can win and achieve something.

What is your message to young badminton players?
Be prepared to work hard. They should love what they do. They need to be focussed, and give their very best. Sacrifices will have to be made. Ups and downs will be there always, but when you need to come back, show strong will power and determination. Then you can achieve anything.

Courtesy: Indian Currents

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India’s PV Sindhu has won the World Badminton Championships gold by thrashing her higher-ranked rival Nozomi Okuhara of Japan 21-7 21-7 in one of the most lopsided finals ever in Basel, Switzerland, on August 25 this year. Sindhu indisputably has proved her invincibility in Basel by mauling Okuhara, her most familiar opponent. Having played 16 matches against each other since 2012, Sindhu now leads the head-to-head 9-7.

Sindhu is the first Indian to become a world champion in badminton. The historic gold in Basel is her 5th World Championships medal. She had won bronze in 2013 and 2014, silver in 2017 and 2018 at the World Championships, and now the coveted gold medal. Accolades strung with selected adjectives ‘incredible, sensational, fantastic, master-class, et al’ continue to pour in for Sindhu. Twitter has been abuzz with Sindhu’s dominant display. Top personalities from all walks of life congratulated Sindhu on her remarkable victory.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi after meeting Sindhu tweeted, “India’s pride, a champion who has brought home gold and lots of glory!” Sports minister Kiren Rijiju congratulated Sindhu on “bringing glory to India” while Badminton Association of India president Himanta Biswa Sarma was “thrilled with joy”. India’s football team captain Sunil Chhetri was in absolute awe of Sindhu’s performance. Former badminton player Jwala Gutta hoped that Sindhu’s victory can change the country’s attitude towards sports. She tweeted: “Hope this medal changes the attitude towards sports in our country and the deserving sportspersons get all the support to achieve more of such feats! Thank you @Pvsindhu1 for this! You proved that with the right kind of support we can conquer the world.”

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Determination to be a winner: Sindhu had many hurdles to cross, and many failures to face, before reaching her dream to be on top of the Badminton world. No failures could hamper her determination. Her eyes were clearly fixed on the one dream: to reach the final glory in badminton. She took failures as necessary hurdles to be crossed before reaching the zenith.

Readiness to work hard: She practices six to seven hours, daily. This is her advice to young people, “be prepared to work hard. There is a price to be paid for anything that we want to achieve in life, and that price is hard work.’

Love for the sport, and being passionate about it. She loved tennis most, and was literally passionate about it. She was prepared to forgo many things, face undue criticisms, all for the sake of the game that she loved. She gave her 100% to badminton, all the way. Sindhu says: “Every round, not merely the final round, was important for me, and I gave my very best to it.”

She is also clearly focussed on the goal she has to achieve: “My immediate target is to do well in the forthcoming tournaments: in China and Korea, as this is the qualifying year for the quadrennial extravaganza. But, winning a medal in Olympics is topmost in my priority list.”

Confidence in her ability to win: Sindhu strongly believed in herself, and her ability to win, to reach the zenith of the Badminton world, and she did reach there, mostly because of her confidence in herself. She says her final victory is a fitting reply to those who kept blaming her for not reaching the top in previous major events. She won, she says, because she wanted to win!

We have a lot to learn from the “Badminton queen” not only to be a winner in the Badminton court, but in our personal lives, too. Three cheers to you, Sindhu, THE TEENAGER TODAY, and the young people of the country are really proud of you!

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As she walked off the court after the medal ceremony, a journalist asked her to express her thoughts. All she said was: “My gold will come.”

That’s India’s Pusarla Venkata Sindhu for you. Towering at 5’10”, she’s a bundle of energy on court. Her power smashes and unbelievable reach to return almost impossible shots makes her a nightmare for opponents.

In the final in Glasgow, though Japan’s Nozomi Okuhara came out trumps, the match will go down as arguably the best women’s singles final match. They even played a 73-shot rally that was nothing short of a treat.

The question that begs is how do you recover after such a loss? Or does a loss at such a high level, after playing so well, have any real impact?

Sindhu knows the smell of defeat quite well. Her loss to Carolina Marin in the final of the Rio Games was devastating. But she didn’t let it bring her down. Instead, she used it as a catalyst to become a much-improved, determined player. What differentiates good athletes from the great ones is how they respond to failure. Sindhu has aced it, and mind you, she has lots of badminton left in her.

To reach such heights that Sindhu has reached at 22, you need to be a brilliant kid to realize early on in life what you want to do. And that’s not enough. You need an excellent support system to help you reach your goal and pick you up when down. More importantly, you need an excellent mentor/coach.

As far as inspiration is concerned, Sindhu didn’t have to look further than her current coach Pullela Gopichand. A legend in his own right, Gopichand had stunned Cheng Hong to win the men’s singles title at the All-England Badminton Championships back in March 2001. Many had written Gopichand off in 1995 when a knee injury almost ended his playing career. So bad was the injury that his chances of even walking were slim. To beat Hong in perhaps the biggest upset of the time made the feat even sweeter.

While the nation celebrated Gopichand’s achievement and couldn’t get enough of it, a young Sindhu watched in awe and admiration. Sport inspires and that Gopichand victory sowed the seeds in the young girl, who would capture the attention of billions 15 years from then. What further encouraged her was that she hailed from Gopichand’s home state of Andhra Pradesh.

Now Sindhu came from a family of sportspersons. Her parents were accomplished volleyball players and naturally wanted their child to follow in their footsteps. No doubt she would have excelled at that sport too; the badminton world was hers to come.

Sindhu’s father, PV Ramanna, who later received the Arjuna Award, had played in the Indian volleyball team that won bronze at the Seoul Asian Games in 1986. But it was Sindhu’s mother, Vijaya, who convinced him to let their daughter take up badminton seriously.

It wasn’t an easy beginning though. For starters, Sindhu had to travel over 50 kilometres every day to get to the training centre. But the young, determined girl that she was, woke up every day, rode pillion of her father’s scooter and trained hard. It was just the beginning of the sacrifices she would have to make in the gruelling world of professional badminton.

Professional coach, Mehboob Ali, was her first mentor and tutored her on the basics of the game at the badminton courts of the Indian Institute of Signal Engineering and Telecommunications. While that surely saw her headed in the right direction, her real learning began when at the age of nine, her idol Gopichand decided to take her under his wing at his academy at Gachibowli, on the outskirts of Hyderabad.

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