HYDERABAD: When Tanvi Lad landed in the city, she had two options: pull out of the Hyderabad Open because she had just recovered from a sickness that had reduced her platelet count, or ignore her health and participate. She chose the latter.
The 26-year-old is on a comeback trail after undergoing a surgery in her right knee in April last year for a patellar tendon tear. The recovery took more than five months, and ever since, she has been toiling to climb up the ladder of BWF rankings. Currently ranked 164, in 2017, she had reached 51 and was the third-best ranked women’s singles player from India after PV Sindhu and Saina Nehwal.
Her Hyderabad Open sojourn lasted just one day as she was ousted by rising shuttler Aakarshi Kashyap 21-15, 21-8 in the qualification stage itself.
Earlier in the day, she had defeated Prashi Joshi 22-20, 14-21, 21-16. After the defeat, she looked disappointed and said that achieving small targets is her plan right now.
“To say that I intend to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics would be unrealistic because only the players in the top-16 of world rankings can do that. I am too far from that, having dropped so much in the rankings. Right now, I intend to achieve the best I can wherever I go to play.”
The former Pullela Gopichand Academy trainee has been training at former shuttler Anup Sridhar’s academy in Bengaluru for two months, after completing a master’s degree in sports management from Loughborough University, England.
“I have set small goals for each month after I started training under Anup sir. I am enjoying this experience,” she said.
Though she has recovered from the injury, there are things that need to be taken care of.
“Constant rehab is needed in the right knee. I do a specific kind of weight training for that.”
Her mother Madhavi was also in attendance at the Gachibowli Indoor Stadium. She shed some light on the difficulties her daughter has faced after the surgery.
“The biggest thing is how to get rid of the mental block that comes with an injury like this. Any athlete is very conscious about that part of the body while making their comeback,” Madhavi opined.
Her ranking had dropped to 256, in December 2018. She has made progress after that. She made the final of Croatia International (Future Series) and the semis of Latvia International, besides reaching the final of All India senior ranking tournament last month, where she was beaten by Gayatri Gopichand.
Now that she is back in the country, Lad is looking forward to play more in the India circuit.
“I think many Indian players have become very competitive. It is always challenging to play in India,” she concluded.