Shuttling to the Top: The Story of P.V. Sindhu

By Krishnaswamy V

Volleyball was the topic of conversation at breakfast and dinner table, but badminton player Pullela Gopichand was P.V. Sindhu's hero. At a time when Saina Nehwal was a rising star, eight-year-old Sindhu would travel over 40 kilometres from her home in a railway colony in Secunderabad, every day, to get to Gopichand's academy and train. Shuttling to the Top: The Story of P.V. Sindhu is the fascinating story of the junior player who went on to be the first Indian to win an Olympic silver medal for badminton.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperSport
• Release date: Apr 14, 2020
• ISBN: 9789353576554

Krishnaswamy V

V. Krishnaswamy is a sports journalist who has covered seven Olympic Games and numerous international championships in badminton. He is also the author of Sachin: A Hundred Hundreds Now, published by HarperCollins.

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Introduction

For someone who is just twenty-four years old, P.V. Sindhu seems to have been around for a fairly long time. In sports, not everyone marked out for greatness actually achieves it. Many fall by the wayside – weighed down by expectations, felled by injuries and sometimes simply because of the difference in the quality of competition at the junior and senior levels.

In the case of badminton in India, where the first half of the decade was dominated by Saina Nehwal, it seems to be Sindhu's time now.

While she did show enough potential in the period running up to the Olympic Games in 2016, with medals at the 2013 and 2014 World Championships while she was still in her teens, it was her amazing run at Rio de Janeiro that set her apart.

In the four years since then, Sindhu brought together a nation’s sports lovers like few have done before. They celebrate with her and grieve with her too. She was the one who made ‘reaching the finals’ seem easy, but it took a couple of years to get past that stage to lift trophies at the highest levels.

She stamped herself as a ‘big tournament’ player reaching the finals in every tournament. In a sport where the calendar is crowded with championships through the year, few players have a record like Sindhu does in major events like the Olympics, the Commonwealth or the Asian Games or even the World Championships or the BWF World Tour Finals. In ten such events since the 2016 Olympic Games, she reached the final eight times. She fell before the final only twice: at the BWF World Tour Finals in 2016, when she lost in the semi-final in Dubai; and at the 2019 BWF Tour final, where she lost in thee Group Stage in Guangzhou.

The Olympic Games and the World Championships are the topmost competitions except that the World Championships are not held in the year of the Olympics. Sindhu has reached the final of each one since 2016. No other player has so consistent a record at the big events.

With age by her side, Sindhu still has at least one more Olympic Games in 2024, if not two, besides many more World Championships.

In the end when the curtains fall on an illustrious career, what matters most is how many Grand Slams tennis players have against their name or how many Majors golfers have to their credit. In badminton, it is the World Championships and the Olympics, and Sindhu with her current record of reaching title rounds so often could be in the list of legends by the time she hangs up her racket.

Soft-spoken and ever-smiling, she has always been a delight to cover and write about. In fact, she is already a big inspiration for the next generation of not just badminton players but for players of all the other sports too.

Over the past few years, I have never seen her turn down a request for an autograph from any youngster nor a request for a selfie with her. She may ask them to wait for the training session to end, but will neither forget nor fail to oblige at the end of it.

Finally, a word about her parents, P.V. Ramana and Vijaya. Theirs has been a stirring tale of sacrifices. Right from the beginning, they felt they had a champion in their hands and they spared no effort to mould her into one. They were duly rewarded with not just a champion, but a great daughter too.

It has been a pleasure to cover the first part of her superb career. I will be most keenly following the rest of it.

V. Krishnaswamy

1

A Gift Long Overdue

‘Happy birthday, Mom’

Basel, Switzerland, 25 August 2019: Moments after defeating Japan’s Nozomi Okuhara in one of the most one-sided World Badminton Championship finals ever, P.V. Sindhu, who towered over her Japanese opponent by a whopping twenty-three centimetres, thanked the crowd for the support they had given her.

As she spoke into the microphone, her voice rose above the cheers and immediately quietened the delirious crowd, among which many people were carrying the Indian tricolour. Full of emotion, yet as steady as her game had been, Sindhu, with the whole world watching her on TV, said, ‘A big thanks to my coach[es], Miss Kim and also Gopi sir, and the whole support staff … I dedicate this award to my mom, it’s her birthday today. Happy birthday, Mom.’

Changzhou, 23 September 2012: Five weeks after watching the Olympic Games on television, Sindhu left for the China Masters Super Series. The story goes that prior to her departure, her father, P.V. Ramana, took her to watch the Hindi feature film Bhaag Milkha Bhaag and kept telling her about various incidents regarding India’s renowned sprinter, Milkha Singh, popularly known as The Flying Sikh. Just before she left, Sindhu’s elder sibling, Divya, declared that she wanted her sister to beat Li Xuerui, an Olympic champion who was ranked number one in the world at the time. In the quarter-final, Sindhu did just that and immediately sent a text message to her sister: ‘Divyyaaa akkkaaa i wonnnn ufffffff (Sister Divya, I won!)’.¹ In the very next round, however, Sindhu lost and exited the tournament. Notwithstanding the initial elation, the job was far from done.

Seven years after beating the then world No. 1, Li of China, Sindhu had swept past Okuhara, her tormentor in the 2017 World Championships, in less than forty minutes to finally rise to the very top of world badminton.

In just two years, from 2016 to 2018, the Indian badminton star had scaled such great heights that there was no doubting her skill. She reached final after final in the biggest tournaments. But there was still no gold to show till the 2019 Badminton World Federation (BWF) World Championships final.

In a single Olympic cycle, she came closer to the peak with each victory until she faltered at the final hurdle. No other player had so many silver medals and not a single gold. The twenty-four-year-old ‘queen of silver’ had a collection that was as heart-rending as it was stunning, given her age. Her ‘silver slam’ included runner-up positions at the Olympics, the Commonwealth Games, the Asian Games and the BWF World Championships (twice).

An optimist might argue that each defeat brings you closer to victory, but hardened, wizened and cynical scribes tend to liken the silver lining to its dark cloud. She would keep repeating, ‘I want to change the colour of the medal.’ No one wanted that gold medal more than Sindhu.

Time and again, Sindhu came incredibly close to giving the gift of gold to an adoring nation and a proud family, but was unable to make it past the final hurdle. She finally crossed that hurdle in Basel.

In the six World Championships since 2013, she failed to claim a spot on the podium just once, in 2015. Before the start of the 2019 tournament, Sindhu had four World Championships medals to her name – two each of bronze and silver – which was no mean feat. Yet, the question always remained, ‘But what about the final?’

In thirty-eight minutes, Sindhu gave us her answer by defeating Okuhara in the 2019 World Championships final. She became the first Indian to win a World Championship gold medal. She now has five World Championships medals – one of each colour! There had never been a better time to say that it really was worth its weight in gold.

Three years prior, in 2016, Sindhu was on the rise. Her performance in the Olympic final in Rio de Janeiro heralded the arrival of a new star – one who had emerged from the shadow of Saina Nehwal, the 2012 Olympic bronze medallist. As Sindhu climbed onto the podium to receive her silver medal, Saina was on a flight back to India and headed straight to the hospital for a surgery upon her arrival.

A year later, in 2017, Sindhu lost a spectacular final at the Glasgow World Championships, leaving spectators as tired as the players. Coach Pullela Gopichand told a few of us gathered there that he would regret the defeat only if she never won another World Championship. After the tournament in Basel, he was liberated from any such concerns.

Interestingly then, a few minutes after Sindhu’s loss in 2017, Saina, who had been estranged from coach Gopichand for the past year and decided to train separately from Sindhu, came over and told us, ‘Mera petrol khatam ho gaya.’ (My body is out of fuel.) A little later, she won a bronze and joined Sindhu on the podium. The two came off it together.

Shortly thereafter, Saina revealed that she would be returning to the Gopichand stable. The badminton queens of India, both with the medals around their necks, stood on either side of the celebrated coach and posed for a picture. It was then evident to us that these were the days of glory for Indian badminton. Saina had recovered well enough from her injury to win a World Championship bronze while Sindhu bagged the silver.

After Rio and Glasgow, a gold medal seemed to be just around the corner. However, as time went by, these achievements were starting to be seen as signposts for Sindhu’s losses in the finals and not for her ascension in the sport.

Sindhu did win the BWF World Tour finals in Guangzhou, China, in December 2018. But there was no hiding the pain of her losses before that at the finals of the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in 2016, the Glasgow World Championships in 2017, the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games in 2018, the Nanjing World Championships in 2018 and the Jakarta Asian Games in 2018. In addition to these were the national finals in Nagpur and Guwahati. These were all just silver dots for Sindhu, but three of those losses – Nagpur, Gold Coast and Guwahati – were at the hands of Saina.

There were other final losses too, in the period since 2016 – the Hong Kong Open in 2016 and again in 2017; the BWF Super Series in Dubai in 2017; the Indian Open in 2018; the Thailand Open in 2018. Just five weeks before the 2019 World Championships, the same threat reared its ugly head once again with Sindhu losing the final of Indonesia Open in Jakarta. The recurrence of losing at the finals had become a chapter in itself in Sindhu’s career.

The fact that she had reached so many finals was overlooked and the losses raised a whole array of questions that began clouding her achievements.

The final losses at several well-known tournaments since the start of 2016 collectively outweighed the memories of some superb wins – the China Open in 2016; the Malaysia Masters in 2016; the Syed Modi International in 2017; the India Open in 2017; the Korea Open in 2017, the BWF World Tour in China in 2018.

Critics raised questions regarding various issues such as the absence of court aggression, her fitness, her ability to change strategy mid-game and her mental strength. And the most crippling of them all – had the riches showered on her after each medal taken away her focus and hunger? Just like this, one of the richest female sportspersons in the world became the subject of intense speculation.

The childlike badminton sensation continued to fight not just her opponents on the court but also her internal battles. Sindhu was grappling and still coming to terms with the changes in her life. She, who had thus far been controlled, was now slowly but steadily gaining control herself.

She, who could buy an entire sweet shop, was not allowed to have any chocolate because her coach forbade her from doing so. She, who could buy the latest and most expensive phone, was not allowed to carry any phone because her coach confiscated it during tournaments. Coach Gopichand did all that for no other reason but to ensure discipline and focus so that his student could win tournaments, titles and gold medals. Her success had given her the life of a superstar. Her status was on par with that of cricketers and film stars, who are practically worshipped in this country. Her bank balance and endorsement deals brought her riches beyond the imagination of her family, who used to carefully calculate how they could cut their expenses to fund her badminton training. And that was not too long back either.

Furthermore, she had to field questions from the ever-inquisitive media, which ranged from her favourite meals, film stars and movies to any boyfriends who would potentially be blocking her way to glory. And with that came the controversies – rumours of not getting along with Saina Nehwal, a rift with Gopichand, changing training centres and so on. The only constant in all this was the support she had from her father and her mother. They had sacrificed everything they had, including their time, to help build a career that they had seen unfolding since their daughter’s childhood and as she transitioned into adolescence and then adulthood.

But she has never really had any friends away from the badminton court. It was school and then badminton, between which she had long commutes. Her company, amidst all this, was her family. It comes as no surprise that her life revolves around badminton and her parents and her sister, who mean the world to her. And she means more than the world to them. It has always been so.

Gradually, the young lady learned what she needed in order to get to the next level – not just to reach the top, but also to stay there.

Undeterred and supported by a team that was unofficially headed by her father, Ramana, Sindhu soldiered on. Team Sindhu also includes emotional anchor and mother P.V. Vijaya, chief coach and strategist Gopichand, fitness expert Srikanth Verma and the most recent addition, Kim Ji Hyun from South Korea, who calls herself a coach-cum-counsellor and much more, all rolled into one.

In Basel, Sindhu didn’t just win a gold medal, she also managed to overcome what others deemed a slump. The question of Sindhu losing in the finals, which had been taken care of temporarily at the BWF World Tour Finals in 2018, was now well and truly buried.

A day before the final in Switzerland, she reiterated that she wanted to change the colour of the medal. Finally, she did exactly that.

The most obvious question at every media gathering afterwards was whether or not she thought she had silenced her critics about always losing in the finals. With a radiant smile plastered on her face, she shot back: ‘This is my answer to the people who have asked me questions over and over. I just wanted to answer with my racket and here it is.’

Okuhara, who had beaten Sindhu in one of badminton’s all-time classics at the 2017 World Championships Final in Glasgow, had now come up short in what was perhaps one of the most indisputable World Championships Final losses ever. The commentator, Gillian Clarke, a former international player, stated that she couldn’t remember ever witnessing such a one-sided final. Neither could anyone else. The Basel World Championships could be the beginning of a new era – a fresh starting point in a career where each silver medal could be replaced by a gold; Olympics, Commonwealth Games, Asian Games and much more.

If 2012 to 2016 were the formative years of Sindhu’s career, the period from 2016 to 2018 can be seen as when she finally blossomed at the highest platforms. More than once after losing a final, she had stated that she’d had enough of silver and wanted to change the colour of the medal.

A child. A prodigy. A world champion. This was P.V. Sindhu version 3.0.