By Kartik Warrier
India has won a total of 30 Olympic medals, since gaining independence. A whopping 9 of them have been won by the Hockey Team, leaving us with 21 individual medals. Just 19 individual Olympic medallists since wrestler K.D. Jadhav won a bronze medal in the 1952 Helsinki Olympic Games. Further narrowing down, we come across two gems who blessed Indian sport by winning two Olympic medals: legendary wrestler Sushil Kumar and a certain Pusarla Venkata Sindhu.
India has had a few badminton legends, with the likes of Prakash Padukone in the 1980s and Pullela Gopichand in the 2000s, dominating world badminton. But it was Saina Nehwal, who made the newer generations fall in love with badminton, winning India’s first ever Olympic medal in badminton, at the 2012 London Games. While Saina continued to be a force to reckon with, eventually becoming the world number 1 in April 2015, someone else needed to take on the mantle of keeping the Tricolor flying high in World Badminton.
Rising to prominence, winning the Asian Badminton Championships 2012 and defeating Chinese stalwarts like the 2012 Olympic Games gold medallist Li Xuerui and Wang Shixian, P.V. Sindhu has been synonymous with clutch play, winning 5 World Championship medals (including a gold), 5 Commonwealth Games medals (including 2 golds) and 2 Asian Games medals.
Sindhu became the first Indian woman to win a silver medal in the Olympic Games, having a stellar run at the 2016 Rio Games, before losing to Spaniard Carolina Marin in the final, in a three setter. She followed it up with a bronze at the 2020 Tokyo Games, thus becoming the first Indian female athlete to win multiple Olympic medals.
Which raises the obvious question- can Sindhu become the first Indian to win three Olympic medals? If I were to be a bit greedier, can she procure the color missing in her cabinet?
While there have been numerous instances of Sindhu overcoming bad form to eventually shine in major events, the challenge this time seems to be much steeper.
For starters, she hasn’t won an individual tournament since the Commonwealth Games 2022 (the Indian women did lift the Asian Badminton Team Championships earlier this year) and has reached only two finals during this time period- the Spain Masters in 2023 and the Malaysia Masters 2024, in May. Since the beginning of 2023, she has lost 17 matches in the first or second round. After the Malaysia Masters, Sindhu played the Singapore Open, where she went down fighting in the second round against Marin, and the Indonesia Open, where she crashed out in the first round losing to World Number 26 Chinese Taipei shuttler Wen Chi Hsu. The Indonesia Open was her last tournament before the Olympics, which means she won’t carry any kind of form to Paris.
While she does have a few nemeses, she has also lost against relatively newer shuttlers including Thai Supanida Katethong (who had recently worked herself up to a career best rank of 12 in the middle of May, before experiencing a small dip in form), Japanese teen sensation Tomoka Miyazaki among others. She had a shock loss to Rio bronze medallist, Nozomi Okuhara, in direct sets at the World Championships 2023. Okuhara, once among the best in the world, had suffered a spate of injuries, and is remotely nowhere near her best. Sindhu has also lost to shuttlers, against whom she used to be comfortable at earlier stages of her career, like Thai Pornpawee Chochuwong, American Beiwen Zhang and Japanese Aya Ohori.
While the shuttlers named above have seen huge improvements in their overall performances, with a few of them having become world-beaters, Sindhu’s bad form too needs to be factored in while analyzing the losses. It is worth mentioning that Sindhu has had a couple of severe injuries to deal with. A stress fracture on her left ankle, after the Commonwealth Games in August 2022 kept her on the sidelines for the rest of the year, while a knee injury she suffered during the French Open in October 2023, ensured another injury layoff of 100+ days. With age catching up, Sindhu is no longer the shuttler she used to be. Neither is the racket speed in her smashes, which defined a major part of her career, visible nowadays nor is her court coverage up to the mark. Sindhu used to be known for her stamina and her ability to play long, but unfortunately her body isn’t suited for that now. In the recently concluded Malaysia Masters, Sindhu lost the finals in a three-setter against world number 6 Chinese shuttler Wang Zhi Yi, having had a lead of 11-3 at the change of ends in the final set, only to lose 18 of the remaining 23 points.
As an Indian fan, not everything is lost. We did get to see small glimpses of her glorious past, enroute to her podium finish in the Malaysia Masters. The world number 12 Indian shuttler defeated world number 7 Chinese Han Yue. One has got to believe it that even at this stage of her career, if Sindhu is on song, most opponents will find it difficult to beat her. She surely still has it in her to defeat top 10 players.
This brings us to the next obstacle- she has a few nemeses, whom she has struggled to perform against quite so often.
Let us start with her newest nemesis- world number 1, South Korean shuttler An Se Young. In the 7 meetings between them, Sindhu has managed to pick only a solitary set!
Then comes the silver medallist at Tokyo, Chinese Taipei shuttler Tai Tzu Ying. Sindhu has lost the previous nine meetings between them, including the semifinal at Tokyo, having last won a match against the former world number 1 shuttler in August 2019.
Carolina Marin too has a staggering head-to-head record, versus Sindhu. The last time Sindhu defeated her was in June 2018, with Marin winning the previous six encounters between them.
With Sindhu currently not among the top 8 seeds, she would probably have to face a top player in the Round of 16 at Paris (assuming she manages to qualify from her group, which shouldn’t be too big a task), unless she improves her rankings. She would have to probably defeat one, if not multiple of the above mentioned three players, if she has to win a medal. To defeat them, Sindhu would not only have to be on top of her game, but also overcome mental hurdles, which is easier said than done. While Young is a relatively new player, stats clearly show that Sindhu has struggled against Tai and Marin, even when she was experiencing a peak in form.
As an Indian fan, one would pray that Sindhu does not leave Paris empty-handed. She has won enough laurels for the country, to have such an anti-climactic ending. Quite clearly, Sindhu will not be able to play until the Los Angeles Games 2028. While she may not necessarily retire after Paris, age is catching up and her body will not allow her to play for much longer. Tai had announced in April 2023 that she would retire at the end of 2024. Sindhu may or may not follow in her footsteps. Either way, one would hope that she has the perfect swansong.
Based on form and fitness, it is really tough to imagine Sindhu going past the quarter finals. But surely Sindhu is not called ‘clutch’ for nothing. She has it in her to peak at the biggest sporting extravaganza. Sushil Kumar could not make it to Rio to complete a hattrick of medals. But Sindhu will be seated on the flight to Paris. Can she become the first Indian to win three individual Olympic medals? Only time will tell.
*All rankings are as published by the Badminton World Federation (BWF) on June 4th.
Curious about the chances of the other Indian shuttlers at Paris? Want to read about the journey of badminton at the Olympics? Here you go: https://iitmsports.wordpress.com/2024/06/23/paris-olympic-games-2024-badminton-2/
IIT-M Sports 