‘THOMAS CUP WIN, A TEAM EFFORT’
Says coach Anil Kumar who is delighted as India scripts badminton history to win gold
In what could be described as one of the biggest and most memorable moments for Indian sports, Indian men’s badminton team has created history to beat Indonesia 3-0 to win a maiden gold medal at Thomas Cup, in Bangkok, on Sunday. Lakshya Sen, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, Kidambi Srikanth and HS Prannoy showed great character and held their nerves to beat the defending champions and 14-time winners Indonesia to lift the trophy!
India had never reached the final of the Thomas and Uber Cup in the tournament’s 73-year-long history. In fact, India had previously reached the Thomas Cup semis in 1952, 1955, and 1979. Commenting on this emphatic win, Anil Kumar, one of the coaches at the Gopichand Academy in Hyderabad, says that this win will give them great confidence to prepare for major upcoming championships like the Commonwealth Games.
“It’s been a fantastic performance by the team; they rose to the occasion,” beams Anil, adding that the win is a result of team effort. “We were confident with the team’s performance before the start of the championship but when we reached the semifinal stage I think we sort of had the belief that we would win it because of the way the team has been performing,” he said, adding that HS Prannoy, Srikanth, Satwiksairaj RankireddyChirag Shetty proved yet again what they are capable of.
The coach said the landmark win boosted the entire camp and that they can carry a lot of confidence.
Apparently, Anil spoke to Srikanth Kidambi the night before the final.
“It was just a casual talk and nothing specific; he was very excited to play the final and was sounding confident. I just told him to be a little patient and make sure not to make too many errors. I asked him to play the game on it’s merits and according to the situation,” explains Anil.
According to the coach, what worked for them was the rigorous training programs formulated by P. Gopichand during morning and evening, 6 hours a day.
Anil is particularly impressed with the self confidence and the fearless attitude the team displayed throughout the tournament. He says that the team trained hard for the last one month and the win is a reflection of the hard work. The team had worked extensively on on-court practice sessions like smashes, strokes and power shots, and player’s movements that brought out a lot of variations in a
Anil spoke to Srikanth Kidambi the night before the final. “It was just a casual talk and nothing specific; he was very excited to play the final and was sounding confident. I just told him to be a little patient and make sure not to make too many errors. I asked him to play the game on it’s merits and according to the situation,” the coach said.
player. “Off the court too, we worked on the players’ program like weight training, agility, running and endurance, so this helped them be tough mentally too,” he says, adding that Gopi Sir also used to custom-design the framework according to the player’s strengths. He states that players should be psychologically strong to handle pressure. And since this championship is a team effort, there was more responsibility on players. “The way they played under pressure; they showed so much maturity and skill. The way they came back even after being down in one of the games was very inspiring,” said the
proud coach.
“We were confident with the team’s performance before the start of the championship but when we reached the semi-final stage we sort of had the belief that we would win it because of the way the team has been performing,” Anil said.