‘Leave what happened, learn from mistakes, come back stronger’: PV Sindhu’s 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.

However, Sindhu’s road to Paris has been bumpy as she failed to win any title last year after returning from a long injury. Meanwhile, he parted ways with his South Korean coach Park Tae-Sang and appointed Malaysian Hafiz Hashim, but split after six months, without achieving the desired results.

The series of disappointing results also saw Sindhu drop out of the top 10 in the world rankings. She gradually gained momentum and secured a spot for her third consecutive Olympics after finishing 12th in 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 where she was not at her best, Sindhu shared that it is important to “learn from mistakes, put what happened behind you 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 coming up, I think it’s important that you learn from your mistakes and come back stronger and just let go of what happened and focus on the next tournament,” Sindhu told an IANS query.

“I mean, everyone knows each other’s game. That day, whoever plays well and gives his best, wins. So what happened at the Malaysia Masters, I know it’s a little sad because he could have gotten that victory. 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. But it’s okay, I’ve learned a lot from some mistakes…” he added.

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In January, Sindhu also moved 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 have been playing with Agus since January, obviously, a few months ago and so far it has been going well. It definitely takes time for a coach and an athlete to understand each other. So we have been working on that and Agus has already been to India for the men (singles) so he knows how it works. It is the first time Agus and I have worked together and it has been a lot of fun,” Sindhu said.

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“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’s been a very experienced coach. So things are working well and I hope they will work well in the future as well,” he added.