Anticipation is at its peak as the Paris Olympics are less than a month away and fans are hoping for ace PV Sindhu to complete the medal hat-trick at the quadrennial extravaganza.
New Delhi, June 30 (IANS) – Anticipation is at its peak with less than a month to go before the Paris Olympics and fans are hoping that ace photographer PV Sindhu will complete the medal hat-trick 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 series of disappointing results also saw Sindhu drop out of the top 10 in the world rankings. She slowly picked up momentum and sealed a spot for her third consecutive Olympics after finishing 12th in the Race to Paris ranking list.
After qualifying for the Paris Games, Sindhu reached her first final in almost a year when she reached the showpiece 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 where she was not at her best, Sindhu shared that it is important to “learn from mistakes, leave behind what happened and come back stronger.”
“I think there are matches where sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. That happened to me at the Malaysian Masters. It’s not that I wasn’t in good shape, but I played as well as I could. Sometimes you win and that happens and that’s good, I think it’s important.”
“For me, when I lose a match or when another competition is coming up, I think it’s important to learn from the mistakes, come back stronger, put what happened behind you and focus on the next tournament,” Sindhu said in response to an IANS query.
“I mean, everyone knows everyone else’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 it’s a little sad because I could have gotten that win. I was winning 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 and it didn’t work out. But it’s okay, I did learn 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 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 it’s been good so far. It definitely takes time for a coach and an athlete to understand each other. So we’ve been working on that and Agus is already “I’ve been in India for the men’s (single) category, so you know 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 been going well and I think we’ve had a lot more time, especially when I was injured and when he was here. We’ve had a lot more time on the court or discussing games or whatever. So right now “The relationship with coach Agus has been really good. He is a very experienced coach. So things are working well and I hope things work well in the future as well,” 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.
–IANOS
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