Not scared of anyone: Sameer Verma

Sameer Verma

At 18, SAMEER VERMA has done enough to make badminton watchers sit up and take notice. The younger brother of star-in-the-making Sourabh had a standout 2011, reaching the final of the Asian Youth (U-19) Championship and the semifinals of the World Junior Championship. These results were extremely impressive, for he beat two top Chinese on the way to the Asian final, and lost the semifinals at the World Juniors in a close match to Viktor Axelsen, considered by many to be the next Peter Gade.

Towards the end of the year, Sameer had a memorable outing at the Syed Modi GP Gold in Lucknow, winning two qualification round matches and dumping world No.19 Hans Christian Vittinghus of Denmark before bowing out in the quarterfinals. The brothers’ brand of fearless badminton bodes well for India. Dev S Sukumar catches up with the soft-spoken Sameer on the sidelines of the National Championships:

Could you tell us about your childhood? Do you come from a badminton-playing family?

Father used to play a bit of badminton, he was a club player. Sourabh had started before me. He’s two years older. I played for the state, and I used to get into the quarters and semifinals, so father allowed me to continue. By then, Sourabh started playing for the state. Father used to encourage us. There’s a court around one kilometer from our home in Dhar. There are somegood players in Dhar now: Sourabh, Pratul and Aditya Joshi, Abhimanyu Singh among others…

You had an exceptional 2011, reaching the final of the Asian Youth (Under-19) Championship and the semifinals of the World Junior Championship.Yes, 2011 was very good for me. My performance shot up rapidly after I joined the Gopichand Academy in 2010.

The player you lost to in the Asian Junior final, Zulfadli Zulkiffli of Malaysia, went on to win the World Junior Championship…

Zulfadli is an attacking player, he keeps hitting all the time. Maybe over the next four-five years there will be a rivalry between me and players like Zulfadli and Viktor Axelsen. Icould’ve beaten Axelsen in the semifinals of the World Juniors.

You also beat two Chinese players on way to the Asian Youth Championship final.

Both the Chinese I beat – Liu Kai and Guo Kai – were left-handers. The Chinese hit very hard, but if you can engage them in rallies, they will get tired. I’m not scared of these players. Earlier, I used to be apprehensive of the top players, but after shifting to the Gopichand Academy, I’ve lost my fear.

And your defeat of Vittinghus in the first round of the Syed Modi tournament?I didn’t know he was a good player. Everybody told me he’s world No.19, but I just went out and played my game.

One feature about you and Sourabh is that you win a lot of three-game matches, and you never seem to give up. Is that fitness natural?

You need to train for that too. We train for that at the academy. We were fit earlier, because father made us do a lot of running on the 400m track in the stadium, and long distances on the road.With the two of you so much into the game, is there a lot of talk about badminton at home?

Oh no… there’s not much talk of badminton at home. We are hardly ever at home. We spend most of our time at the academy in Hyderabad.