HYDERABAD: UP until last year, when PV Sindhu used to hit the courts across the world, a three-game marathon running into about 70 minutes could easily be expected. The fact that she had capped off the year with a scintillating win at the World Tour Finals by overcoming one of her fiercest rivals — Nozomi Okuhara — pointed to greater things to come. However, the lanky shuttler has faced tough times on courts during the months following that win.
In the last six months, she has taken part in six singles tournaments — other than Sudirman Cup and Asian Championships — with her best finishes being two semifinal appearances at India Open and Singapore Open. More alarming has been the way some of her defeats have come. Quite contrasting to those edge-of-the-seat thrillers that she has been a part of a zillion times, she has gone down to opponents quite easily. In Singapore, she lost to Okuhara 7-21, 11-21. At Indonesia Masters, she bowed down to Carolina Marina 11-21, 12-21.
Then, a month-long break from the uber-hectic BWF calendar came as a boost. The athlete says that the break helped her in identifying the problems in her game. “In the last six months, I lost a couple of matches easily. Worked out on what went wrong, and I feel I am a much better player now. The last month was good. I got enough time to prepare myself,” Sindhu told reporters on the sidelines of the announcement of the fifth edition of PNB Metlife Junior Badminton Championship.
This daily got in touch with former national champion Trupti Murgunde to learn more about the issues that the player might be facing. “All top players have these rough patches. When you are performing consistently, other shuttlers tend to read your game even more. She just needs to gain confidence back. There are new coaches that she has been working with, and I am sure they would have figured something out,” Murgunde said.
Sindhu has been training under former Asian Games gold medallist Kim Ji Hyun these days. Hyun, together with Park Tae Sang had joined Pullela Gopichand Academy in February to ease head coach Pullela Gopichand’s load. Asked how has it been training under a new coach, she said: “The training sessions have been different because each coach has a different technique. It is good because we can learn a lot of new things. I hope everything will go well in the tournaments,” Sindhu, who is set to fly for Indonesia Open (BWF World Tour Super 1000), which begins on July 16, said.