New Delhi, June 30, 2024
Anticipation is at its peak as the Paris Olympics are less than a month away and fans are hoping that ace PV Sindhu will complete the hat-trick of medals at the quadrennial extravaganza.
But Sindhu’s road to Paris has been a bumpy ride as she failed to win any title last year after returning from a long injury layoff. In the meantime, she parted ways with her South Korean coach Park Tae-Sang and appointed Malaysian Hafiz Hashim, only to part ways after six months, failing to achieve the desired results.
The string of disappointing results also saw Sindhu fall out of the top 10 in the world rankings. She slowly gained momentum and secured a spot for her third consecutive Olympic Games after finishing 12th on the Race to Paris qualification list.
After making the cut for the Paris games, Sindhu reached her first final in almost a year when she reached the summit clash at the Malaysia Masters last month, where she lost the title to China’s Wang Zhi Yi.
In a media interaction held by the Sports Authority of India, when asked how she coped with the challenging phase when she was not at her best, Sindhu shared that it is important to “learn from mistakes, leave behind what you have happened and come back stronger.
“I think there are games in which sometimes you win and sometimes you end up losing. That happened to me at the Malaysia Masters. It’s not that I wasn’t in good shape, but I played the best I could. Sometimes you win and that happens and that’s okay, I think it’s important.
“For me, when I lose a match or when you have another competition ahead of you, I think it is important that you learn from your mistakes and come back stronger and just leave what happened and focus on the next tournament,” Sindhu responded to an IANS query. .
“I mean, everyone knows each other’s game. It’s just that on that day, whoever plays well and gives their best, wins. So, what happened at the Malaysian Masters, I know it’s a little bit sad because I could have gotten that win.
“I was winning 11-3, it was just a matter of those 11 points and I would have won the championship, but I felt like it wasn’t my day because I did everything I could and it didn’t go well. But it’s okay, I’ve learned a lot from some mistakes…” he added.
This January, Sindhu also shifted her base from Hyderabad to Bengaluru to be close to her new mentor Prakash Padukone ahead of Paris 2024 and began training with her new Indonesian coach Agus Santoso.
Santoso has previous coaching experience in India. He served as coach to Indian singles players, including Kidambi Srikanth and B Sai Praneeth, in 2020 and 2021 and was with the Indian badminton contingent for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
“I’ve been playing with Agus since January, obviously, a few months ago and so far it’s been good. It definitely takes time for a coach and an athlete to understand each other.
So we’ve been working on that and Agus has already been to India for the men (singles), so he knows how it works. This is the first time Agus and I have worked together and it has been a lot of fun,” said Sindhu.
“It’s been good. Everything has been going well and I think we have a lot more time, especially when I was injured and when he was here. We have a lot more time on the pitch or discussing the games or whatever.
So right now the relationship with coach Agus has been really good. He has been a very experienced coach. So things are working well and I hope they work well in the future too,” he added.
Sindhu is currently training in Saarbrücken, Germany at the Hermann-Neuberger to prepare for the Paris Olympics. She will be there for over a month along with her coach and support team before heading to the French capital. (Agency)
