GANDHINAGAR: Despite a nagging injury in the right knee for the past one-and-a-half-year, Chhattisgarh shuttler Aakarshi Kashyap has been participating in the national and international events quite regularly. The injury is minor, she says, but it keeps recurring to trouble her during matches. It requires extra strengthening and proper warm-up of around half-an-hour before every match if the 21-year-old shuttler wishes to play without being impeded by the injury.
Knowing fully that the pain could trouble her, Aakarshi decided to compete at the ongoing 2022 National Games to contribute to her state's medal tally. The decision paid off as she clinched gold for Chhattisgarh, the first in badminton, in women's singles beating top-seed Malvika Bansod of Maharashtra 21-18, 22-20 in the final at PDDU Indoor stadium in Surat on Thursday.
"It's better now but sometimes the pain is more. It's a nagging pain actually so I usually focus more on strengthening. I usually feel the pain when I haven't done the warm-up. After warming up, it's much better. I feel the pain while jumping and doing a few other things but after 20-30 mins of running and other stuff it disappears," Aakarshi told this daily.
Playing with the injury had affected her show on court and there were times when she even decided to concede matches. "Last year during the Chennai and Hyderabad All India Ranking Tournaments the pain was intense and I even thought of conceding matches. Fortunately for me, it got better after some time. It recurred a few months ago. But I have consulted doctors and they say it's a minor thing. I just need to do more strengthening to keep things under control," she added.
With the win in the first round, Aakarshi set up a mouth-watering quarterfinal clash against home favourite Tasnim Mir. She defeated Mir in straight games (21-17, 21-14) to enter semifinals where she outclassed Tanya Hemanth of Karnataka 21-9, 21-15.
Aakarshi has been quite dominant in the domestic circuit for some time now but somehow couldn't translate that success regularly to the international events. She, however, recently won a mixed team silver at the 2022 Commonwealth Games and feels competing in all these tournaments will only help her grow as a shuttler. "For me, competing in all these tournaments has given me a good boost and improved my confidence on court. Competing against good players is a valuable experience for me and that experience will definitely help me in future."
She is currently ranked 47 in the world rankings and wants to get into the top-16 bracket to fulfill her aim of representing the country in the Olympics. "My ultimate goal is to represent and win a medal for the country in the Olympics. Right now I am looking for that and trying to improve my world ranking in the next one-and-a-half-year and enter the top-16 bracket as that will ensure my place in the team for the 2024 Games."
Aakarshi has been spending quite some time with ace shuttler PV Sindhu of late as she trains at Suchitra Badminton Academy where the latter trains. Aakarshi feels that she is learning a lot only by watching Sindhu both on and off the court. "We usually don't talk about matches off the court. As a junior, I usually watch her keenly while playing and try to learn from it. I watch her even off the court and during warm-up sessions so that I can learn something new," she added.
Notwithstanding the ever-recurring knee injury, Aakarshi will not have time to rest as she will take part in the Maldives International Challenge starting October 18. She will then compete in the Hylo Open, a Super 300 event, in Germany next month.
Top prize for Praneeth in men's singles
Top seed B Sai Praneeth of Telangana had to work hard for his 21-11, 12-21, 21-16 victory over Karnataka’s Mithun Manjunath in the men’s singles final. Praneeth dominated the first game but Mithin came back in the second to take the contest to the decider. The gold is also Praneeth first at the event.
The Telangana duo of N Sikki Reddy and Gayatri Gopichand clinched the women’s doubles gold beating national champions Ashwini Bhat and Shikha Gautam of Karnataka 21-14, 21-11. PS Ravikrishna and Sankarprasad Udaykumar of Kerala took the men's doubles gold beating Hariharan Amsakarunan and R Ruban Kumar 21-19, 21-19. Ashwini Ponnappa and K Sai Prateek of Karnataka started their journey as a mixed doubles combination with a comfortable 21-16, 21-13 win over Rohan Kapoor and Kanika Kanwal of Delhi.