Smash Hit

It’s not every day that you see an international sports star practise in your neighbourhood. For eight-year-old PV Sindhu, though, it was part of the routine to watch her father PV Ramana, a national-level volleyball player, exchange rallies with Pullela Gopichand, one of India’s best badminton players and only the second from the country to win the All-England title. What started as mild interest soon turned into something more serious and at the age of 10, Sindhu joined Gopichand’s badminton academy in Hyderabad’s Gachibowli area.

PV SINDHU & PULLELA GOPICHAND 

Partnership: 11 years

A little more than a decade later, Sindhu, 21, made her debut at the Olympics. By then, she’d received the Arjuna Award and the Padma Shri, and had broken into the world’s top 10 rankings. She was counted as one of India’s brightest medal hopes at the Games. Performing at the highest level, however, involves fighting off not just your opponent but also the burden of expectations from an entire nation. Fortunately, this was something both Sindhu and Gopichand had prepared for. “For me, talk of national pride helps in staying focused and making sacrifices,” says Gopichand. “But you need to move away from being emotional to becoming process-driven. While preparing for the Olympics, it’s important that the focus remain on how you train, eat, rest and think. Once you are at the Games, you need to relax. In the past, Sindhu has been guilty of losing matches because she couldn’t handle the pressure. But because she worked so hard and was so well-prepared for the Olympics, she didn’t feel the heat. I was confident of her winning a medal.” Sindhu says she hardly felt burdened. “Gopi sir told me he didn’t want me to feel any pressure. He asked me to give it my best shot and that’s what I did. I played my heart out against every opponent.”