Ankita Raina thread

All posts regarding specific player and player fans threads are in this forum

Moderator: Moderators

RohitG
Member
Member
Posts: 1332
Joined: Mon Dec 10, 2012 1:22 pm
Antispam: No
Please enter the middle number: 5

Re: Ankita Raina thread

Post by RohitG »

Somdev: It was safe to assume Ankita won't make it to Tokyo Games

Sorry if this is a repost. Latest article on the TOPs exclusion featuring comments by Somdev. I find this extremely disappointing. If the criteria involves being in top-60 or likelihood of performing in Olympics (which even he didn't do it himself with his career high of 62 in one season and an early round exit at the Olympics) then I guess half of the Indian contingent which travels to Tokyo shouldn't be eligible for TOPs. Asian and Commonwealth games also factor in and she should have been included IMO. The argument of taxpayer's money is shallow, when the public can't do much about so much wastage of money in other areas of the economy, who's gonna complain if India's no.1 gets a bit of money to represent the country. It's surprising that such comments come from him in PUBLIC media. Very irresponsible and hypocritical considering these guys always complain about no proper funding in tennis. Not too long ago they rebelled for better seats in the plane for Davis Cup when most of the times they couldn't make it past the playoffs. Looks like he has learnt a trick or two from the previous biggies in Indian tennis to publicly comment on another player.

Ankita's comments earlier this month on TOPs exclusion
Ankita Raina: I let my racquet do the talking
sameerph
Moderators
Moderators
Posts: 32794
Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2005 4:26 pm
Antispam: No
Please enter the middle number: 5
Location: MUMBAI
Has thanked: 1 time
Been thanked: 11 times

Re: Ankita Raina thread

Post by sameerph »

Yes, it is unfortunate that he thought fit to include Prarthana who too is 23 and has not got near grand slam main draw in doubles and not our #1 player Ankita. I was really hoping Somdev would take up the role that Gopichand has done in badminton but so far he has come short of expectations.
User avatar
knarayen
Member
Member
Posts: 1201
Joined: Tue Sep 02, 2003 1:29 am

Re: Ankita Raina thread

Post by knarayen »

sameerph wrote: Tue Feb 27, 2018 3:03 pm Yes, it is unfortunate that he thought fit to include Prarthana who too is 23 and has not got near grand slam main draw in doubles and not our #1 player Ankita. I was really hoping Somdev would take up the role that Gopichand has done in badminton but so far he has come short of expectations.
I don't know this guy's rationale, but in his position I would not exclude a single person in the top 500 list in men and women. Given the amount of money being wasted in the public sector banks on scams, the amount of money being spent on these hard-working athletes is not even a rounding error - so I'm sorry Buji but your reasoning does not hold up - it is just plain stupid! Hope you are reading this Mr. Somdev.

Prof
User avatar
Saniapower
Member
Member
Posts: 3450
Joined: Tue May 05, 2009 6:45 pm
Antispam: No
Please enter the middle number: 5

Re: Ankita Raina thread

Post by Saniapower »

I also blame Ankita to some extent for that because I feel she did not make any serious attempt to improve her ranking. She could have been easily inside top 200 by now. But what I have found, either she does not play for a considerable period of time or her selection of tournaments does not make much sense to me.
User avatar
VReddy
Member
Member
Posts: 759
Joined: Fri Jan 27, 2006 3:34 pm
Please enter the middle number: 1
Location: Zurich, Switzerland
Contact:

Re: Ankita Raina thread

Post by VReddy »

Appears like Somdev did indeed go by the logic that we discussed here (viewtopic.php?f=2&t=219105&p=4386593&hi ... y#p4386588). He went by the logic of who has the potential to make it the Olympics cut-off - which has been around 100 rank

Prarthana makes it only because of Sania being there. So if Sania retires tomorrow, its pretty obvious that Somdev will remove her from the list as Prarthana by helself would make the doubles cut. We may call it stupid now but its not new as such (other than him officially confirming it) as back then some of us had found some reasoning in Somdev's point (viewtopic.php?f=2&t=219105).

The best thing would be that Somdev should do is that once he realized that Asian Games / Commonwealth Games are part of it too, to reach out personally to Ankita, clarify the issue and include her back given the scope now as it includes Asiad/CWG. Hope he does that. As Vishnu called out recently, he is one guy who appears to be seen as available to players at all times - hope he stands up to that image with Ankita - who has been a Tigress for us for many years now and deserves the support that this program will provide.
User avatar
jayakris
Moderators
Moderators
Posts: 34757
Joined: Mon Dec 16, 2002 7:24 am
Antispam: No
Please enter the middle number: 5
Location: Irvine, CA, USA
Has thanked: 10 times
Been thanked: 1 time
Contact:

Re: Ankita Raina thread

Post by jayakris »

VReddy wrote: Tue Feb 27, 2018 4:28 pmThe best thing would be that Somdev should do is that once he realized that Asian Games / Commonwealth Games are part of it too, to reach out personally to Ankita, clarify the issue and include her back given the scope now as it includes Asiad/CWG. Hope he does that. As Vishnu called out recently, he is one guy who appears to be seen as available to players at all times - hope he stands up to that image with Ankita - who has been a Tigress for us for many years now and deserves the support that this program will provide.
Well said!
Observer
Member
Member
Posts: 78
Joined: Tue Aug 30, 2016 1:59 pm
Antispam: No
Please enter the middle number: 5

Re: Ankita Raina thread

Post by Observer »

I really wished we had someone who had played at a higher level than Somdev consistently in administration. Somdev was a struggler for majority of his career and was never comfortably stable at the top. Somdev unfortunately never had the privilege to form a holistic perspective. He is also a naturally confident individual and confidence coupled with ignorance is a terrible combination. Not including Ankita was a very bad decision which could have affected her confidence very adversely, kudos to Ankita for not letting it demotivate her!

Somdev is nowhere near Gopichand in either skill or temperament. Gopi was the best in the world in his sport and managed to stay a top player for significant time. Somdev is relatively well known only because he is from India where there is a dearth of tennis players. Gopi also has a much more giving and matured personality. Lets not take those 2 names in the same breath.
User avatar
Varma
Member
Member
Posts: 2487
Joined: Wed Aug 18, 2004 2:49 am
Please enter the middle number: 1
Location: Irvine, CA, USA

Re: Ankita Raina thread

Post by Varma »

It's very pathetic for Ankita to be left out. I am more shocked to see that decision coming from Somdev. Looks like he realized his mistake that the scheme was not just for Olympics, but covers Asian & Commonwealth games too. I hope he sheds his ego and reconsiders his decision.

On another note, a few of us from this forum are contributing smaller amounts to help Ankita, hoping to see her make some progress. If any of you is interested, please use the following link to join the WhatsApp group...

https://chat.whatsapp.com/9RYGr3FWN75L61eM2T42E1

Smaller contributions from a few might help her get some respite and let her concentrate on improving her ranking. She is at a point where a small nudge might help her get into Grand Slam qualies. Please consider helping her out.

- Varma
sameerph
Moderators
Moderators
Posts: 32794
Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2005 4:26 pm
Antispam: No
Please enter the middle number: 5
Location: MUMBAI
Has thanked: 1 time
Been thanked: 11 times

Re: Ankita Raina thread

Post by sameerph »

Observer wrote: Wed Feb 28, 2018 4:04 am Somdev is nowhere near Gopichand in either skill or temperament. Gopi was the best in the world in his sport and managed to stay a top player for significant time. Somdev is relatively well known only because he is from India where there is a dearth of tennis players. Gopi also has a much more giving and matured personality. Lets not take those 2 names in the same breath.
Both the sports are not really comparable. Tennis is 10 times more widely played across the world than Badminton. I am not saying that Somdev is near Gopi in terms of achievements but the gap is not as wide as you say.

Also our expectations in terms of turnaround in our fortunes in Tennis will be much lower than Badminton. We cannot expect multiple master level titles ( like superseries titles), multiple Olympic medals etc, in Tennis. We would be happy if we get 1 top 20 player and a couple of other top 100 players to start with. With the maturity shown by Somdev in his career I was hoping Somdev to perform a role similar to Gopi ( not necessarily as much in terms of achievements). But, so far he has fallen short of expectations as I said earlier, although it is still early days in his retired career.
Observer
Member
Member
Posts: 78
Joined: Tue Aug 30, 2016 1:59 pm
Antispam: No
Please enter the middle number: 5

Re: Ankita Raina thread

Post by Observer »

sameerph wrote: Wed Feb 28, 2018 5:16 am
Observer wrote: Wed Feb 28, 2018 4:04 am Somdev is nowhere near Gopichand in either skill or temperament. Gopi was the best in the world in his sport and managed to stay a top player for significant time. Somdev is relatively well known only because he is from India where there is a dearth of tennis players. Gopi also has a much more giving and matured personality. Lets not take those 2 names in the same breath.
Both the sports are not really comparable. Tennis is 10 times more widely played across the world than Badminton. I am not saying that Somdev is near Gopi in terms of achievements but the gap is not as wide as you say.

Also our expectations in terms of turnaround in our fortunes in Tennis will be much lower than Badminton. We cannot expect multiple master level titles ( like superseries titles), multiple Olympic medals etc, in Tennis. We would be happy if we get 1 top 20 player and a couple of other top 100 players to start with. With the maturity shown by Somdev in his career I was hoping Somdev to perform a role similar to Gopi ( not necessarily as much in terms of achievements). But, so far he has fallen short of expectations as I said earlier, although it is still early days in his retired career.
I suspect the level of difficulty to be a top player in a sport doesn't grow linearly with the number of participants. IMO it follows a logarithmic curve and badminton is big and matured enough that the difficulty of being a top player is not significantly lesser than that of being a top tennis player.Its definitely not comparable to a top 90ish tennis guy who briefly managed to reach 60 . This is because I suspect that the difficulty of maintaining a rank grows exponentially with rank so being a top player is exponentially more difficult than reaching 60. The above 2 together lead me to believe that "Greats" in most "sufficiently dense" sports are significantly better than people who are merely "Good" in all sports.

There are other factors which are easily overlooked. For instance tennis has a very high economic threshold of entry which makes it a non starter for most people and effectively reduces competition.

Effectively I believe the difference between Gopi and Somdev is very wide.

Though not relevant in the current sparse Indian tennis scenario but another interesting potential difference in these 2 cases is that if tennis were to get sufficiently easily accessible then its quite likely that we would come across players with higher natural talent ceilings than Som, effectively making him less useful. However Gopi is sufficiently close to the point of saturation in skill that new talents would most likely not be out of his range.

However I generally agree that its early days for Som and I too hope he has a great coaching career which benefits Indian players. Hopefully to a turnaround like you mentioned :)
User avatar
suresh
Member
Member
Posts: 7879
Joined: Thu May 22, 2003 12:08 pm
Please enter the middle number: 1
Location: Chennai, IN

Re: Ankita Raina thread

Post by suresh »

While I don't like Somdev's decision with regard to Ankita, I like his transparency as an administrator. At the very least, we have an opportunity to hear his viewpoint.
sameerph
Moderators
Moderators
Posts: 32794
Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2005 4:26 pm
Antispam: No
Please enter the middle number: 5
Location: MUMBAI
Has thanked: 1 time
Been thanked: 11 times

Re: Ankita Raina thread

Post by sameerph »

:Offtopic:

Observer wrote: Wed Feb 28, 2018 7:11 am
I suspect the level of difficulty to be a top player in a sport doesn't grow linearly with the number of participants. IMO it follows a logarithmic curve and badminton is big and matured enough that the difficulty of being a top player is not significantly lesser than that of being a top tennis player.Its definitely not comparable to a top 90ish tennis guy who briefly managed to reach 60 .
It is not only the number of participants but also the level of competition. You don't have US and almost entire Europe ( except a couple of nations such as Denmark, Great Britain) being serious about badminton and Asia rules the roost. Generally, I believe a top 10 rank in badminton to be equal to a top 100 rank in Tennis in terms of level of difficulty.
This is because I suspect that the difficulty of maintaining a rank grows exponentially with rank so being a top player is exponentially more difficult than reaching 60. The above 2 together lead me to believe that "Greats" in most "sufficiently dense" sports are significantly better than people who are merely "Good" in all sports.
Well, I differ on this issue too but even accepting this if you look Gopi's career he won 1 big event ( All England) but not too many others. His career high rank of #5. So, he was not a true great in that sense. It is a different matter if we are talking about Prakash Padukone who was world #1 and was regularly in top 4 at his peak.

Of course, here we are talking about playing abilities. As a coach, Gopi has turned to be much better than Prakash and almost every other Indian in any sport.
Observer
Member
Member
Posts: 78
Joined: Tue Aug 30, 2016 1:59 pm
Antispam: No
Please enter the middle number: 5

Re: Ankita Raina thread

Post by Observer »

sameerph wrote: Wed Feb 28, 2018 7:47 am :Offtopic:

It is not only the number of participants but also the level of competition. You don't have US and almost entire Europe ( except a couple of nations such as Denmark, Great Britain) being serious about badminton and Asia rules the roost. Generally, I believe a top 10 rank in badminton to be equal to a top 100 rank in Tennis in terms of level of difficulty.
Well, I differ on this issue too but even accepting this if you look Gopi's career he won 1 big event ( All England) but not too many others. His career high rank of #5. So, he was not a true great in that sense. It is a different matter if we are talking about Prakash Padukone who was world #1 and was regularly in top 4 at his peak.

Of course, here we are talking about playing abilities. As a coach, Gopi has turned to be much better than Prakash and almost every other Indian in any sport.
I wouldnt be too surprised that a game where great hands and coordination are as or more important than raw athleticism is dominated by Asians. Its well suited for asians as they are not at a disadvantage(Physical or economic) unlike in tennis. I dont agree with a [top 10] ~ [top 100] equivalence because of the arguments I presented in my last post. I believe Badminton is big, diverse and dense enough.
An extreme example is that Basketball(or Baseball or American Football) at elite level is popular in exactly 1 country but one wouldnt argue against it not being competitive enough because even though it isnt international enough, its definitely dense enough. Think of it this way, Michael Jordan wasnt even a proper international player :D
sameerph
Moderators
Moderators
Posts: 32794
Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2005 4:26 pm
Antispam: No
Please enter the middle number: 5
Location: MUMBAI
Has thanked: 1 time
Been thanked: 11 times

Re: Ankita Raina thread

Post by sameerph »

Team sports can be compared to team sports and not individual sports. :D If you are talking of basketball, it is competitive but not as much Soccer which is played more widely internationally. It is even more true for sports like Baseball or American football.

As for [top 10] ~ [top 100] equivalence between Tennis and Badminton that is just an estimate. It may be top 70 or top 80 instead of top 100 but difference is certainly large, in my opinion.

I will let others comment on this interesting topic and then we can move it some other thread as this has nothing to do with Ankita. :D
User avatar
jaydeep
Moderators
Moderators
Posts: 23792
Joined: Wed Aug 18, 2004 8:59 am
Please enter the middle number: 1
Location: India

Re: Ankita Raina thread

Post by jaydeep »

Post Reply