“Saina’s support staff shouldn’t have sent her to Rio”
While it was a feeling of betrayal that forced Saina to move to Bengaluru, for Gopi it was a case of losing everything he had worked on for over a decade. He had lost his favourite student. Sindhu, however, benefited from this as Gopi started to invest in her, though it was a challenge for him to take her to the very top of the sport.
Sindhu, in turn, grabbed the opportunity with both hands and started doing exactly what her coach wanted her to do. While Saina always had the potential, her departure from Hyderabad worked wonders for Sindhu in that it gave her more time with Gopi. The duo soon started preparing for the 2016 Rio Games with single-minded determination.
Saina too wasn’t to be left behind. To her credit, she became the world’s number one player within three months of moving to Bengaluru and seemed to have sorted out her game. But with time, her training in Bengaluru lost steam and she started getting injured frequently.
While trying to focus on the Rio Olympics, she was overdoing things without knowing the repercussions of pushing her body too much. “I was alarmed when I went to Bengaluru,” said Kashyap. “I was injured and trying to make a comeback at the time. My Olympic dream was over and I felt it would be good if I was able to help Saina get into the best shape ahead of the Olympics.
But what I saw was very disturbing. While she was playing brilliant badminton and keeping pace with me all through her training, she was doing so under extreme physical stress. It was only a matter of time before she broke down and things went out of her control. That she was able to go to Rio and win a match is a miracle.”
Saina had a hairline fracture in her ankle just weeks before Rio and was in serious physical discomfort going into the Olympics. Truthfully speaking, Vimal and her support group should not have sent her to Rio. But this was the Olympics and they were unable to make the right call at the right time. In Rio, she was in agony and went to the local doctor to get a steroid injection just a day before her first match. But by then, Kashyap says, the bone was in bad shape and nothing could numb the pain. It was a heartbreak of humongous proportions.
With Sindhu doing brilliantly to win the silver, Saina, the original superstar, seemed to have all but disappeared from people’s radar back home.
“It was clearly the worst phase in her life. She had lost early in the Olympics and it had wasted months and years of hard work. Gopi sir wasn’t with her anymore and she was soon to have surgery to get things back on track. She had no friends in Bengaluru and did not really know what to do,” said Kashyap.
“It was her grit that got her back to badminton. I have to say that if there is one player in the circuit who can win matches by her sheer grit, it has to be Saina. She has the mind of Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal combined and I am a huge fan of her mental toughness,” said Gopi.
It was this grit that pushed Saina to undergo surgery and complete rehab as quickly as possible.
We ask Kashyap why she didn’t go back to Gopi at that point. His answer offers us great insight into Saina’s mind and helps us understand why she is who she is and why she stands a great chance in Tokyo.
“My wife is a perfect Haryanvi Jatni, if you know what I mean. She is just too headstrong and proud. She desperately wanted to go back to Gopi sir and say sorry. She needed him badly but she was just too stubborn to admit it and open up to him.
“She wasn’t willing to go back to a situation where she had nothing to show for herself. She had to complete her rehab, make a comeback and then go back to him having proven herself,” he said with a chuckle.
Thereafter he adds, “Please don’t write all of what I have said to you; I need to keep my marriage going!”
The mindset Kashyap spoke about explains why Saina rushed her rehab and made a premature return to the circuit. While she had started playing again, her pain failed to subside completely. She would inevitably carry niggles to every tournament she played in and it mustn’t have been the best feeling to play with pain every single day of her life. Being in Bengaluru wasn’t helping her and it was starting to get to her.
“To think she won a World
Championship medal in this state is simple unbelievable,” said Kashyap.
“Her diet was all messed up at the time and she was pretty much having anything she wanted. She was overweight and her body wasn’t ready to take the rigours of a three-set match. However, she could have still won the 2017 World Championship had she closed out the semi-final in two games against Okuhara. She almost did before Okuhara staged a remarkable comeback, and in the third game she stood no chance.” The frustration in Kashyap’s voice was obvious.
And it was at the Glasgow World Championships in 2017 that Saina finally spoke to Gopi. A bronze medal after coming back from her injury meant she had something to show for her efforts. That’s what prompted her to approach Gopi and ask him to take her back.