PV Sindhu, who created history at the Rio Olympics is now the talk of the world. The twenty-one year old shuttler from Hyderabad won the hearts of milloins of people all over with her magnificent show, winning a silver.
It has been a great journey from the time she picked racket as a 8-year old girl. And personally as a sports journalist I feel fortunate to have interviewed on many occasions. The first tournament I covered when Sindhu played was at Guntur in 2008, where Sindhu defeated Tulasi and from then she never looked back. Then she overcame Sikki Reddy, one of India’s promising players then to win a sub-junior title at Nellore. Sikki had to concede in the middle, suffering a knee injury which kept her out of badminton for a long time.
A year later in 2010 Sindhu stunned the seasoned Saili Rana at Yanam in the 35th junior nationals to bag the title. And that match is still fresh in my memory as Saili conceded when she was about to lose. I was commentating for DD Sports and had the fortune of interviewing Sindhu after the match. I would always ask Sidhu why is it that whenever you play the final, the opponents concede — do they fear you? And then she would laugh and say I really dont know, but am happy with my performance.
At that time I had predicted that she would go a long way, and today we all know that she has stunned the badminton world by winning a silver medal, of course very unlucky to have missed gold.
So many have played a key role in her reaching this level, first of all their parents and her main coach and mentor Pullela Gopichand. Gopi’s contribution to Indian badminton as a player and coach can’t just be measured. He has been producing many champions, which include Saina, Nehwal, Guru Sai Dutt, Srikant and P Kashap. We wish PV Sindhu all good luck, hoping she will continue to win many more medals in the years to come. I am sure her next aim now will be to win all-England and the world championship gold, which is not very far the way she has progressed in the last couple of years.
Mahavaadi Sudeer,
Commentator-DD sports
