The entire country was elated on 4th August 2012, and with good reason. Saina Nehwal claimed the bronze medal at the London Olympics after her opponent in the play-off, Xin Wang, withhdrew mid-way through the match due to injury. In the process, Saina became the first Indian badminton player in history to win a medal at the Olympics and for the next few years, reigned as the undisputed queen of Indian sport.
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That same year, a little known girl by the name of PV Sindhu defeated 2012 London Games gold medalist Li Xuerui in the China Masters. Skip four years later to today, and Sindhu has destroyed Japan’s Nozomi Okuhara 21-19, 21-10 in the semi-final of the 2016 Rio Olympics to guarantee India’s first ever silver in badminton. She’s also done something that no one thought she was capable of: creating the possibility of the country’s first ever badminton gold.
Pusarla Venkata Sindhu turned 21 on 5th July, a month before the opening ceremony of the 2016 Rio Olympics, and she was considered as just one of the dark horses to get a medal in badminton at the Games. This, after all, was a sport that was led by the undisputed superstar Saina Nehwal, who had brought glory to the nation on this same stage four years ago. Saina alone has been the cynosure of all eyes in the past half a decade as far as badminton is concerned and rightly so, given her path-breaking achievements.
But Sindhu, considered by many to be a talent powerhouse, under the tutelage of Indian badminton legend and modern-day Dronacharya Pullela Gopichand, has risen silently through the ranks during these five years to become a menacing forced to be reckoned with. The road was not easy for Sindhu and her journey to the 2016 Rio Olympics singles final has not been just her own. It has taken tremendous sacrifice from her father, dedication by Gopichand and undeniable hard work by Sindhu herself.
The talent was never in doubt, and Sindhu always seemed destined to do great things. But the storm that Okuhara faced today had been brewing in the background for four years. During these four years, from 2012 to 2016, Sindhu faced some harsh defeats, tasted a few glorious victories and came back from injury to become what she is today. The defeat to Sayali Gokhale in the finals of 2012 National Championships hurt her bad, and so did the one to Linda Weni Fanetri in the Syed Modi India Grand Prix Gold final, but ultimately they only made her stronger.
Did it help Sindhu that the spotlight was always on Saina? It can’t be denied that bad losses become that much worse when you are constantly questioned and heckled about them. In a way, Sindhu was fortunate that she was allowed to quietly go about her business while Saina was taking the world by storm. Those years plugging away in the shadows really helped Sindhu learn the vagaries of her game at her own pace, instead of being unfairly thrown to the wolves and asked to become a champion overnight.
There were a few glimpses of her unquestionably exceptional talent when she won bronze medals at the World Championships in 2013 and 2014. Her stock in the Indian sport has seen a constantly rising graph and she’s learned the meaning of pressure and big stage play along the way. But there’s one thing that Sindhu always had, irrespective of the path she took to grow: an insatiable desire and hunger to succeed, which is perhaps the one thing that separates her from any other badminton player, male or female, who has represented the country.
While one associates words like calmness, composure, determination and work ethic with Saina, the words hunger, aggression, passion, domninance and fire can be attributed to Sindhu. She had lost to her opponent Okuhara before coming into today’s match on the last three occasions, but the display Sindhu put in the semi-final gave no such indication. Aggressive in attack and compact in defence, Sindhu had her opponent reeling as she dismantled Okuhara in straight games.
After winning her quarterfinal match against Wang Yihan, Sindhu had said that the goal was not to win medals but to beat the best. And when she takes on Spain’s Carolina Marin on Friday evening, it might be the same mentality that could propel her to write a fresh page in the books of Indian sporting history. Saina has done us proud by breaking through the wall and showing the path, but Sindhu is racing on that same path and taking things to a new level.
Come Friday, when Marin faces an Indian in the final of a major tournament, she will need to be careful about her game because the girl representing the world’s second most populated country is nothing like the others. She is talented, aggressive, hungry, intelligent and on a path to greateness.
PV Sindhu is writing her own blockbuster script, ladies and gentlemen. Be there to watch the premier this Friday evening.
