Shuttle surge

After seven years, Chennai will host a strong badminton tournament. The All-India National Junior Ranking Tournament will be held at Fireball Academy near Koyambedu next week. Remarkably, the event will see a shift from the usual practice of public venues hosting big events. Fireball has a set a new trend in badminton in the city as this will be the first time a private academy has come forward to host a national event.

In fact, Bengaluru and Hyderabad have super academies run by Gopichand and Prakash Padukone, which held such events regularly. The last time Chennai held a strong badminton tournament was in 2010, the India Open Grand Prix was held at the Jawaharlal Nehru Indoor Stadium. 

Chennai Badminton Association secretary and the head coach at Fireball Academy S. Aravindan says what started as a small project has now taken wings in the city. “Ten years ago, we launched the first coaching facility at Mogappair with three courts, swimming pool and gymnasium, which has now spread to different parts of the city,” recalls Aravindan. “The difference now is that Chennai has a few private academies brimming with talent as against the centres of SDAT and the public stadia,” adds Aravindan. 

Fireball has five centres now. Apart from the main academy at Golden George Nagar, it has smaller centres at Kilpauk, Anna Nagar, Mogappair Eri and Mogappair East. “We needed a bigger facility to improve our centre of excellence. That was how we came to Golden George Nagar, where we have six artificial courts,” explains Aravindan. The centre has two full-time Indonesian coaches apart from a couple of part-time consultants. “The Indonesians are from the Mutiara Academy, a well-known coaching centre there,” says Aravindan.

Chennai’s only all-India tournament was the Krishna Khaitan event held by a newspaper group for the juniors but that was stopped almost 10 years ago. Aravindan has a dream to hold a similar event or even an international event in the city if everything goes well in the near future. 

“You will be surprised to see the number of talents coming to the fore in the age-group category from Tamil Nadu,” beams Aravindan with a smile. “Today, there are small academies in almost all the districts, especially in Coimbatore and Madurai. We held a State event for juniors here at our academy rwo months ago and there were boys and girls from interior Tamil Nadu giving a tough time to the players from Chennai,” adds the Chennai association secretary. 

Rohan Castelino, a fomer National junior champion from Bengaluru, says he watched some junior talents in the city and especially at Fireball. “I have been in Chennai for the last three years after I was transferred from Bengaluru by ONGC. I watched the State event held at Fireball and I was surprised by the junior talents in the State, which has no tradition or glittering performances in the game,” says Rohan, who was part of the Prakash Padukone Academy in Bengaluru.

“It is a good sign, but these kids have to work hard to get to the national level. They need a lot of corrections but I feel many players have the potential to make it big. I am sure exposure to big events will help them immensely,” notes Rohan, who won the National Junior Championship in 2002. 

Aravindan has put the facilities in Chennai in proper perspective. “We started as a club but now we are a talent scouting centre. We have around 400 kids in all the centres put together in Chennai. This is also a residential academy and it offers the children the best combination of study and train in badminton,” explains Aravindan. 

“In Chennai district, there are four players in the top 20 in the National sub-junior boys category including two in top 10, which is most number of top players among all districts in the country. Among those four, Sidhant Gupta is ranked No 2, Shankar Muthusamy No 8, Ritvik Sanjeevi No 11 and Kevin Thangam No 19. Sidhant and Ritwik train at Trinity Badminton Academy, coached by Jerry Martin, Shankar is at Fireball trained by me and Jacob Thangam coached by Rajnikanth,” Aravindan briefs on the talents in the city. 

Is Tamil Nadu also getting into the Saina-Sindhu wave by throwing up these talents and following in the footsteps of Vimal Kumar and Gopichand in coaching? The next 10 days in the National Junior Ranking Tournament will give some directions for sure.