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When I grew up there would be a few folks who played singles and doubles at a high level. Increasingly, it has become that singles and doubles players have become very specialized in that the training needed for both is not feasible on your body, you do not have enough time to do it, and the toll on the players are more than they can bear and thus they jeopardize their careers. I read an interesting article recently and thought I'd share.

Thanks for sharing that link. I was wondering why is shuttle different from tennis, we have seen singles player reach pinnacle in doubles when they care.

Could it be that rallies in shuttle doubles are way longer compared to rallies in shuttle? And they will not have energy. Also in tennis, they don’t play all over the court, so a scratch pair of singles players can easuly win the top tournament, shuttle on other hand probably requires lot more understanding of your partner tendencies?

Atithee wrote: ↑Thu Feb 24, 2022 8:37 pm Saina still got in? I thought she was not winning many matches of late. Great to see such high representation.

The rankings in badminton still use a lot of ranking points back from 2019- pre covid period, purposely to keep Chinese players rankings intact as they are not playing much post covid. But, players like Saina are also benefitting because of that. Else, I think Saina would have fallen a lot more.

But, realistically Saina's pro career is on her last legs. Hopefully, she can play Asian games and Commonwealth games this year and wins a medal to round off her career.

srini wrote: ↑Mon Dec 20, 2021 12:53 am Mulyo handoyo and Tan kim her are set to return coaching Indian team. If true this can be great news for Indian badminton. Mulyo not only helped Srikanth pocket the most number of titles in a calendar year in 2017 but is also instrumental in shaping the Singaporean Loh kean yew as the world champion in the just finished tournament. Tan has been instrumental in making Satwik/Shetty realize their full potential.Coaches like Mulyo who are fitness freaks can help the senior players like Srikanth,Sindhu extend thier careers and can guide the youngsters like Lakshya immensely in tactics. Hopefully this will be longer stint with both of them extending up to Paris'24 and put Indian badminton firmly on world stage.

replying to my own post from December. No news of Mulyo or Kim returning to India for coaching after that! Was that simply Mulyo's way of putting pressure on his current employer Singapore badminton association for pay hike ?

srini wrote: ↑Thu Mar 03, 2022 2:00 pm

srini wrote: ↑Mon Dec 20, 2021 12:53 am Mulyo handoyo and Tan kim her are set to return coaching Indian team. If true this can be great news for Indian badminton. Mulyo not only helped Srikanth pocket the most number of titles in a calendar year in 2017 but is also instrumental in shaping the Singaporean Loh kean yew as the world champion in the just finished tournament. Tan has been instrumental in making Satwik/Shetty realize their full potential.Coaches like Mulyo who are fitness freaks can help the senior players like Srikanth,Sindhu extend thier careers and can guide the youngsters like Lakshya immensely in tactics. Hopefully this will be longer stint with both of them extending up to Paris'24 and put Indian badminton firmly on world stage.

replying to my own post from December. No news of Mulyo or Kim returning to India for coaching after that! Was that simply Mulyo's way of putting pressure on his current employer Singapore badminton association for pay hike ?

Not sure of Mulyo but KIm is confirmed to be returning to India.

Malaysian Tan Kim Her appointed Indian badminton's doubles coach

That is good news for Indian doubles which is looking up now.

Apart from BWF 300 in Switzerland where Sindhu won the title and Prannoy finished runner up, an international challenge series tournament was held in Poland. Both mens and womens singles titles were won by Indians. 21 year old Kiran George won his second title of the year as he beat a Taiwanese player in final and 16 year old Anupama Upadhyay beat 18 year old Aditi Bhatt to win the womens singles title.

Indian badminton is looking up.

That's amazing. Looking at progress, somehow we haven't done as well in football as in badminton or cricket or chess. I guess an early start helped. In all these sports we had individual champions in the 80s that helped spark interest in the sports. Tennis suffers from a horrible family grip on the federation.

To me football suffered under long tenure of Priya Ranjan Das Munshi. When in coma, his wife managed the federation. I guess that's the. An early start when the administrators take steps to improve the game.

Yes, Priya Das Munshi's period as AIFF president was probably the most destructive phase for Indian football (soccer). But the rot began a lot earlier -- in the 1970s -- when we rapidly slid down the Asian rankings, and nobody did much to arrest the slide. In the 1950s and early-1960s, India was among the top-3 football nations in Asia (winning the Asiad football gold in 1951 and 1962) -- with the last whiff of that being the bronze medal in the Asia Cup in 1970. That is a legacy that has been horribly squandered. (In 1971, India was beaten 9-1 by Burma in the Merdeka Cup, which was perhaps the single biggest turning point toward disaster; we have never really recovered in the past 50 years!).

Badminton has been well-administered, with the involvement of past players as coaches being a crucial catalyst. Prakash Padukone and Pullela Gopichand (the two former All-England champions, the former also a world #1) have been huge factors, but others (like Vimal Kumar and Dipu Ghosh) also did well as coaches. Indian badminton suffered a big setback with the murder of Syed Modi (who might have become a worthy world-class successor to Prakash, having succeeded him as CWG gold-medalist in 1982, and won 8 consecutive national titles). That broke the continuity in excellence, but things have really looked up in the past 10-15 years.

The best part has been the improvement of our doubles teams in the past few years. On the women's side, I wonder who will follow Sindhu?

One major highlight for badminton is we have won a medal in all major events ( world championship/olympics) since 2011-

2011 WC- Bronze for Jwala-Ashwini in womens doubles
2012 olympics- Bronze for Saina Nehwal in womens singles
2013 WC- Bronze for Sindhu in womens singles
2014 WC- Bronze for Sindhu in womens singles
2015 WC- Silver for Saina in womens singles
2016 olympics- Silver for Sindhu in womens singles
2017 WC- Silver for Sindhu, Bronze for Saina in womens singles
2018 WC- Silver for Sindhu in Womens singles
2019 WC- Gold for Sindhu in Womens singles
2021 olympics- Bronze for Sindhu in womens singles
2021 WC- Silver for Srikanth, bronze for Lakhsya Sen in mens singles

So, it is 11 consecutive year with at least 1 medal, has not happened in any other global sport for us. It is more about 2 womens- Sindhu ( 7 medals) and Saina ( 3 medals). But, I feel now womens singles medals will get reduced- mostly over for Saina. Sindhu may still sneak in 1-2 years more. But, not have more hopes from mens singles and doubles - Satwik-Chirag and new womens doubles pairing. Looks like will need few years to find out who after Sindhu in womens singles ?

India leads the BWF titles in 2022 by number (5 titles) while Japan does so by the number of quality titles (3 in Super 1000). China's record in 2022 has been abysmal with just 2 titles that too only in Super 300.Its still early days, things can change during rest of year!
It seems to me Indian Men's team can be good contenders for Thomascup this year. (8-15 May 2022)

That's because in 1962 say only eight teams played in the Asian Games. China had been conspicuously absent. South Korea was perhaps then a poor country. Japan was there and a bunch of South East Asian countries, who were poor themselves and in doldrums (South Vietnam). And, the middle eastern teams/Arabs did not care. Once everybody gets interested and develops, we stay stagnant or recede. So, let's win whatever we can in badminton. Then, when a lot of people start playing, we will possibly recede.

https://www.news18.com/news/sports/youn ... 39490.html

Nice article on the future of Indian badminton. It is written by Sanjay Sharma, a former player who used to write for Sportsar.

Omkara wrote: ↑Thu Mar 31, 2022 6:26 am Ajay Jayraman Joins ISB

Following in the footsteps of Viren Rasquinha