Young shuttlers aim to give their best shot
LUCKNOW : About 30-odd young shuttlers are putting their best foot forward to impress each other as well as the coaches, at the Uttar Pradesh Badminton Academy here.
Their mission is common — to win as many medals as possible at the upcoming Badminton Asia Junior Under-15 and Under-17 Championship to be held at Myanmar from October 3 to 7 – but the centre of attraction is a shy boy Sai Vishnu.
In a short span of time, the 14-year-old lad from Hyderabad has already earned a name for himself, playing well in the domestic circuit. And the biggest positive point for him is that he is the son of India’s chief badminton coach Pullela Gopichand.
Ranked third in BAI’s list of under-15, Sai would be pairing with top Edwin Joy in the boy’s doubles at the Myanmar event, and SAI coach at the Gopichand Badminton Academy PV Dileep Kumar sounds confident of Sai and his partner doing well at the big stage. “Officially, this would be his (Sai) first foreign trip as part of the Indian squad. I find him a good medal winning prospect in doubles with Edwin,” said Kumar on the sidelines of team’s training on Thursday. Terming young shuttlers as the future of Indian badminton, Kumar hoped this time the number of medals for India would be better from what they had in the last edition also in Myanmar in the Asia junior event.
“We have high hopes from many of our shuttlers. I am sure that this time India would be extending the count of their medals in Myanmar,” he said.
In 2016 edition, Indian shuttlers had brought home an unprecedented haul of four medals which included a gold medal in U-15 women’s singles. It was third seeded Samiya Imad Farooqui, who came back from a game down to edge Indonesian giant-killer Widjaja Stephani (15-21, 21-17, 21-19) in 56 minutes.
All the other three medals were bronze. Unseeded Aashi Rawat had a bronze in U-15 women’s singles after bowing out to her compatriot Farooqui 9-21, 18-21 in an all-Indian semifinal. India got their third medal in the U-15 section through the men’s doubles team of Ayush Raj Gupta and Shubham Patel. And their only medal in the U-17 category came through the women’s doubles pair of Keyura Mopati and Kavipriya Selvam, who lost their semi-final match to the Indonesian duo of Kelly Larissa and Shelandry Vyola, 13-21, 19-21. Manipur’s Maisnam Meiraba, S Shankar Muthusamy, Sai Satya Sarvesh Yakala, RK Upananda, Pranav Rao Gandham, Tara Shah, Tanseesna Singh, VS Varshini, Tesnim Mir, Vijetha Harsish Shruti Mishra etc. are the favourites this time.
Out of 42-member team practicing here, 12 have opted out for the trials for the Under-19 World Cup and would be joining the team in New Delhi before the departure for Myanmar.
“There is a strenuous eighthour training session for them throughout the day and the best thing is that every kid is responding well. They are energetic and responsive to the drills and hard work,” team’s chief coach Devendra Kaushal said..