Indian badminton in dire straits now after a glorious 2022

Around this time last year India stunned the sporting world by snatching the fabled Thomas Cup from under the noses of topranked countries like Malaysia Denmark Thailand and JapanIndian badminton enjoyed a fairy tale run in 2022 hammering all opposition at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow winning four gold medals one silver and a bronzeIn individual events Almora boy Lakshya Sen stormed into the Top 10 beating every leading singles player including the almost unbeatable Victor Axelsen in semifinals of the German Open Sen also reached the final of the All England HS Prannoy and former World No 1 Kidambi Srikanth also played their part reaching the World No 10 and 11 ranks respectivelyAfter a long wait PV Sindhu came good too winning gold at the CWG The All England last year also threw up two new shining lights in womenrsquos doubles stars Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand Not to be left behind the dynamic duo of Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy also excelled winning gold at the Thomas Cup besides a team gold and an individual gold at the CWGIndia became an emerging superpower in the sport and the players became household namesAlso Read Special selfreward awaits badminton stalwart RajawatOnly wishful thinkingIn 2023 a year that will witness qualification events for next yearrsquos Paris Olympics one would have expected Indiarsquos shuttlers to take off from where they finished in 2022 But this has only turned out to be wishful thinking so farIn fact Indian badminton is in dire straits with the start of this year being a disasterIn the first six tournaments including the recent Spanish Masters the Indian pool of around 30 players support staff and officials travelling across the circuit could only manage to win one titlemdashthe Swiss Open In fact only one Indian apart from the doubles teams of ChiragSatwik and TreesaGayatri was able to reach the semifinal stage The most shocking display was at the All England where apart from TreesaGayatri there was no India in action on Day ThreeSen Indiarsquos leading menrsquos singles player isnrsquot doing well At the All England he lost to Denmarkrsquos Anders Anderson in the second round At the German Open he lost in Round One to Francersquos Christo Popov At the Swiss Open he was bundled out by Hong Kongrsquos Lee Cheuk Yiu in Round OneWith Prannoy and Srikanth both 30 years old showing signs of tiredness and needing longer time to recover from tough matches Sen 22 needs to excel so that Indiarsquos next generation of players like Mithun Manjunath Kiran George and Priyanshu Rajawat look up to him But thatrsquos not happening and this will lead to a vacuum in the menrsquos singles departmentDefensive SindhuThe situation in womenrsquos singles is worse With Saina Nehwal walking into the sunset of her career though refusing to accept it India needs Sindhu to fire on all cylinders But surprisingly she has switched from her aggressive and fastmoving style to a highly defensive game where she is trying to run down her opponents rather than demolishing them with the scorchers she is famous for Consequently she is losing to lesser known names like Thailandrsquos Supanida Katethong India Open and Indonesians Kusuma Putri Swiss Open and Gregoria Tunjung Spanish Masters Indiarsquos other womenrsquos singles players like Malvika Bansod Akarshi Kashyap and Tasneem Mir did not win a single game at these tournamentsIn doubles India have a pair each in the menrsquos and womenrsquos categories who are doing a good job but ideally there should be at least three or four good pairsIn womenrsquos singles teenagers emerging from China Japan Korea and Indonesia are physically powerful and that makes them matchwinners In India barring teenager Unnati Hooda 15 there are few juniors who have the power India needs to strengthen its womenrsquos singles players before they are thrust into the boiling cauldron of international badmintonThe author is a former India badminton player