2019: The year of slowdown for Indian badminton's golden triangle

Indian badminton has been on the uprise for the last two decades. From being a mediocre badminton nation in the 20th century, Indian badminton has improved leaps and bounds. At present, India is among the top 8 badminton nations in the world.

The main reason behind India's rise as a badminton nation can be attributed to the fact that the infrastructure for the sport has improved drastically, in the first decade of the 21st century.

As a result of that, the young and talented badminton players of India got the exposure they needed to succeed at the international level. Indian players have been consistent in winning medals, in most of the badminton tournaments in the last decade.

Majority of the credit for India's tremendous success should go to its top 3 star players, viz. Saina Nehwal, PV Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth. It is because of them, that India won medals in prestigious badminton tournaments, like the World Championships, Olympics, Super Series Events and The All England Championships.

However, off late, all the three stars are going through a prolonged rough patch of form.

Saina Nehwal is at the fag end of her illustrious career. Nowadays she finds it difficult to consistently win matches against the top 10 players of the world. Moreover niggling injuries and knee problems have affected her fitness, which used to be her biggest strength, in her hay days. As a result, Saina in recent times has found it very difficult to win big tournaments. With age not on her side, things will only become more difficult for her in the coming years.

From 2016 onward, PV Sindhu has been the most successful Indian shuttler. She has won medals in almost all the major tournaments in the last few years. However off late, she seems to be out of form too. She has been losing matches against lower ranked opponents in 2019. Her ranking has also dipped and she is presently outside the top 3 in the world. However with age in her side, she can definitely regain her form and again be the very best.

K Srikanth's form has been a big worry. He has been struggling to beat top players and win tournaments for the last 2 years. If Srikanth wants to get back among the top 5 shuttlers of the world, he really needs to pull up his socks and start winning big matches and tournaments.

Thus the meteoric growth of Indian badminton is suddenly facing a slowdown. However all the badminton fans across the nation will be hoping that this is just a temporary phase, before some new talent comes up and achieves even greater heights in the badminton world.