Anticipation is at its peak as the Paris Olympics is less than a month away and fans are expecting ace shutter PV Sindhu to complete the hat-trick of medals at the quadrennial extravaganza.
New Delhi: Anticipation is at its peak as the Paris Olympics is less than a month away and fans are expecting ace shutter PV Sindhu to complete the hat-trick of medals at the quadrennial extravaganza.
But, Sindhu’s road to Paris has been a bumpy ride as she failed to win any title last year after coming back from a long injury layoff. Meanwhile, she parted ways with her South Korean coach Park Tae-Sang and appointed Malaysia’s Hafiz Hashim, only to split after six months, failing to achieve the desired results.
The series of disappointing results also saw Sindhu being dropped out of the top 10 in the world rankings. She gradually picked up the momentum and sealed a spot for her third consecutive Olympics after finishing 12th on the Race to Paris Ranking List.
After making a cut for the Paris games, Sindhu made 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 felicitated by Sports Authority of India, when asked how she coped with the challenging phase when she was not at her best, Sindhu shared that it is important to “learn from the mistakes, leave what has happened and come back stronger”.
“See, you know, I think there are matches where sometimes you might be leading and sometimes you might end up losing. That happened to me in the Malaysian Masters. It’s not that I was not in a good shape, but I played my best. And sometimes you’re leading and it happens and it is okay I think it’s important.
“For me when I lose a match or when you have another competition coming forward, I think it’s important that you learn from your mistakes and come back stronger and just leave what has happened and just focus on the next tournament,” Sindhu replied to an IANS query.
“I mean, everybody knows each other’s game. It’s just that on that day, who plays well and gives the best is the winner. So, what has happened in Malaysia Masters I know it is a bit sad I could have got that win. I was leading 11-3 it’s just a matter of those 11 points and I would have won the championship but I felt that it was just not my day because I did everything and it didn’t work out. But, it’s okay, I have learnt a lot from a few errors…” she added.
This January Sindhu also shifted her base from Hyderabad to Bengaluru to be close to her new mentor Prakash Padukone ahead of the Paris 2024 and started training with her new Indonesian coach Agus Santoso.
Santoso has a prior experience of coaching in India. He served as the coach of the Indian singles players, including Kidambi Srikanth and B Sai Praneeth, in 2020 and 2021 and was with the Indian badminton contingent for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
“I’ve been playing with Agus since January, obviously, a few months back and it’s been good so far. It definitely takes time for a coach and athlete to understand each other. So we’ve been working on that and Agus is already been in India for the men’s (singles) so he knows how it works. It’s the first time me and Agus are working together and it’s been a lot of fun,” said Sindhu.
“It’s been good. It’s been going on well and I think we’ve got a lot more time especially when I was injured and when he was here. We got a lot more time on the court or discussing about the matches or whatever it is. So right now the relationship with coach Agus has been really good. He’s been a very experienced coach. So things are working out well and I hope things will work out well in the future as well,” she further added.
Currently, Sindhu is training in Saarbrucken, Germany at the Hermann-Neuberger to prepare for the Paris Olympics. She will be there for over a month along with her coach and support staff before heading to the French capital.
