New Delhi: Fierce rivals on court, badminton stars Saina Nehwal and PV Sindhu are training at separate academies of national coach Pullela Gopichand ever since their epic Commonwealth Games summit clash in Gold Coast, eager to ensure that neither of them gets a whiff of the other’s strategies and improvisations. In the CWG final, Saina beat Sindhu in a grueling contest.
“Sindhu was not comfortable training at the new academy. Since badminton is an individual sport, there will always be competition. So to hold on to her own tactics, she decided to train at the old academy after the CWG,” Sindhu’s father PV Ramana, himself a Asiad volleyball bronze medallist in 1986 told this agency.
“If they train together, both will be able to gauge each other’s weaknesses and also how fit the other is, what each is working on. It is similar to how Saina had left the academy and trained under Vimal Kumar for three years,” Ramana added.
Asked about Sindhu’s training schedule and how she is manages sparring partners, Ramana said: “Gopi trains her in morning from 7am to 8:30am and then two Indonesian coaches make her play. Then there are junior boys and doubles players. So I don’t think sparring is a problem.”
The Gold Coast loss was Sindhu’s third successive against Saina. When she went to Gold Coast, she was carrying an ankle strain for which she skipped the team event.
Ramana however, asserted that fitness had nothing to do with Sindhu’s loss in the final. “If you are on court, it means you are 100 per cent. You can’t give excuses if you lose. Sindhu knows that win or loss is not permanent. It is a part and parcel of life and so one shouldn’t boast or give excuses,” Ramana pointed out.
Talking about Sindhu’s future tournaments, Ramana said that Sindhu will play the Malaysian Open this month and then Indonesia and Thailand. However, she will skip the Singapore Open to train for World Championship in China.