Indian badminton needs to get its mojo back

Once ranked as high as number two in the world, Sindhu’s results stagnated owing to fitness issues and re-discovering the title habit, which the 29-year-old is yet to completely circumvent

“2 years, 4 months, and 18 days,” wrote P V Sindhu on the social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter), after winning the women’s singles title at the Syed Modi India International at Lucknow. It was her first Badminton World Federation (BWF) title since July 2022, when she won the Singapore Open, a long drought of titles that’s over time sent her ranking down to 16.
Once ranked as high as number two in the world, Sindhu’s results stagnated owing to fitness issues and re-discovering the title habit, which the 29-year-old is yet to completely circumvent.

The Syed Modi is a Super 300 event, which is the lowest of the four levels of tournaments the BWF World Tour offers (after Super 1000, 750, 500), and therefore did not have the world’s top players. Sindhu was the highest ranked among women, which worked to her advantage but also offered the chance of a confidence-boosting title win.

Sindhu’s losing streak

The winner of two Olympic medals, in itself a rare achievement for an Indian athlete in an individual sport, has gone through a gamut of coaches—primarily P Gopi Chand and Prakash Padukone—as she searched for that combination that would pull her out of the rut. Former player Anup Sridhar and Lee Hyun-il are helping her strategize as she finds a way to play smarter even as younger international opponents snap at her heels.

The 24-year-old Chinese Wang Zhi Yi beat her in the final of the Malaysia Masters this year, and in the Arctic Open semi-finals last October after Sindhu had got past her in the Singapore final. The 25-year-old Indonesian Gregoria Mariska Tunjung had her number in the Spain Masters final in April, Malaysia Masters semi-finals in May last year, and in the Denmark Open quarter-finals this October. Old rival Carolina Marin, herself finding her way back to the top after a long injury break, beat her in the Denmark Open semis last October and the Malaysia Open last January.

Sindhu is already planning the next stage of her badminton career, with the opening of her academy in Visakhapatnam last month. But she told The Indian Express in an interview after that inauguration that her focus remains on her own game as she gets into “intense training and refining my game”.

Can Sen overcome self-doubts?

The Syed Modi India International merely added a balm to what has been a painful year for Indian badminton, a year of the Olympics and one without titles till December. If Sindhu’s win could catalyse her decelerating career, Lakshya Sen’s win in Lucknow could help eliminate self-doubts.

Sen won the men’s final in Lucknow, ending a 16-month period without a BWF title. In a tournament where the world No. 16 was the highest ranked player by a distance, the win would perhaps re-introduce him to optimum performance in the last stages of a tournament rather than mark a significant career achievement.

Sen last won a tournament at the Canada Open in July 2023, before undergoing a tremendous slump with a series of seven first round losses since August that year. This year has been not too different, with eight losses in the first or the second round of a tournament though he did make it to the semi-finals of the French Open and the All England in March.

“He is injury-free, and he’s training well, but of course, if you look at the last 4-5 months, he’s been struggling at events,” his coach Vimal Kumar told Sportstar after the All England in March. “At the moment, he is low on confidence, and he’s not playing the right game… Every athlete goes through this, but he’s taking time to come out of it.”

Once ranked number six, the 23-year-old came close in the Paris Olympics in August, losing in the semi-final and in the bronze medal match, both of which he looked in control of at various points. It led to his chief coach Padukone to state that athletes—like Sen—received adequate support from the government and they should take responsibility for their performances.

The pack follows

Other Indian players who have tethered on the edge of consistent success till recently have slacked a bit too off late. H S Prannoy, 32, capable of beating the best players in the world on his day, last won a title in Malaysia in May 2023, a Super 500 event which marks his ability. But fitness issues have steadily dogged him, making it difficult for him to consistently retain form through the course of a tournament.

Kidambi Srikanth, 31, and once ranked No.1, last won a title in 2017 at the French Open and has not made it to the final of a BWF tournament in three years. His ranking has slipped to the 40s, with doubts over his motivation to continue pegging away. Both Prannoy and Srikanth skipped the Lucknow event.

While a host of young players, like 35th-ranked Priyanshu Rajawat and 37th ranked Kiran George, continue to make gains, as The Indian Express reported in November, what has truly been lost in 2024 is the ability of Indian shuttlers to win titles. Lucknow has merely altered a statistic, changed the count from zero, but its true achievement would be to mark a beginning.

Arun Janardhan is a Mumbai-based freelance writer-editor. He can be found on Twitter@iArunJ. Views are personal.