#Rio2016: Silver for India’s golden girl

It was Marin who took the early initiative and ran away with a 5-2 lead. Sindhu, unable to control her long returns gave away at least four points with the shuttle flying over the backline.  The lead extended to 6-11 at the first time-out, courtesy a plethora of unforced errors from Sindhu that handed Marin the advantage. The time-out did a world of good for the Indian as Sindhu displayed excellent cross-court skills and stunned Marin by winning five points at a stretch to wrap up the first game 21-19. The Spaniard bounced back in champion style to win the second game and restore parity at 21-12. Marin won the third game 21-15 to win the gold. Earlier, Japan’s Nozomi Okuhara was awarded the women’s singles badminton bronze medal after China’s Li Xuerui pulled out of their clash with a knee injury. Reigning Olympic champion, Li picked up the injury during her 21-14 21-16 semi-final loss to Spanish top seed Marin on Thursday. Okuhara lost to Sindhu in the semi-final.

The enduring image for India at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro will be of the lanky Pusrala Venkata Sindhu, pumping her fist and giving out a triumphant roar. To many of the city’s sports lovers, this is not an unfamiliar sight, as the 21-year-old from Hyderabad has a Chennai connect.  

Sindhu, a proud protégé of Pullela Gopichand, who coached her assiduously in his Academy, played for Chennai Smashers in the inaugural Premier Badminton League under Indian national coach T Maran. According to Maran who assisted Gopichand at the Olympics preparatory camp before Sindhu left for Rio, the shuttler’s victory over China’s Wang Yihan in the quarter-final did a world of good to her confidence. 

“That was a big match for Sindhu. She attacked at will and never gave her opponent a chance to think of a comeback. That win boosted her confidence to go for the kill,” Maran said. The Tamil Nadu coach said that Sindhu worked a lot on her dribbling (net shots) skills at the Indian camp before jetting off to Rio. “I have fed Sindhu around 500 shuttles at a time to hone her dribbling skills. She would have completed a gruelling, two-hour training session prior to that and the dribbling session itself would last between 45 minutes and an hour. However, from my observation, it is this aspect that Sindhu would need to work on more,” Maran added. 

According to Maran, Sindhu’s height is a huge advantage. “Because of her height, she can generate more power into her smashes and reaching for the shuttle also becomes easy. She gets that extra split- second to retrieve the shuttle on the drop too,” the Indian coach said.