PV Sindhu reveals success mantra for Paris Olympics

Anticipation is at its peak as the Paris Olympics is less than a month away and fans are hoping for ace shutterbug PV Sindhu to complete the hat-trick of medals at the quadrennial spectacle.

New Delhi: 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.

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However, Sindhu’s road to Paris has been a bumpy one as she failed to win any title last year after returning from a long injury. Meanwhile, she parted ways with her South Korean coach Park Tae-Sang and appointed Malaysian Hafiz Hashim, but they parted 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 qualifying 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 happened and come back stronger.”

“Look, I think there are matches where sometimes you can be leading and other times you can 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.” And sometimes you’re leading and it happens and it’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 his best is the winner. So, what happened at the Malaysia Masters I know is a little sad, it could to have gotten that victory. I was leading 11-3, it’s just a matter of those 11 points and I would have won the championship, but I felt like it just wasn’t my day because I did everything I could and it didn’t work out. But it’s okay, I’ve learned a lot from it. some mistakes…”, he added.

This January, Sindhu also moved her base from Hyderabad to Bengaluru to be close to her new mentor Prakash Padukone ahead of Paris 2024 and started training with her new Indonesian coach Agus Santoso.

Santoso has previous coaching experience in India. He coached Indian singles players, including Kidambi Srikanth and B Sai Praneeth, in 2020 and 2021, and was part of 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 in India for the men’s (singles) tournament, so he knows how it works. It’s the first time Agus and I have worked together and it’s been a lot of fun,” Sindhu said.

“It’s been good. It’s gone 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 court or discussing the games or whatever.” “Now the relationship with coach Agus is very good. He is a very experienced coach, so things are working well and I hope that in the future they will also work well.”

Sindhu is currently training in Saarbrücken, Germany, at the Hermann-Neuberger to prepare for the Paris Olympics. He will be there for over a month along with his coach and his support team before heading to the French capital.