Sindhu's Shuttle

Sindhu's Shuttle

- Liam Dias

Picture this. A 22-year-old girl from Hyderabad has just played the second-longest women’s singles final of a World Badminton Championship. She came just short, losing 21-19, 20-22, 22-20 in a match that lasted 1 hour and 50 minutes, against an opponent who was in the form of her life.

As she walked off the court after the medal ceremony, a journalist asked her to express her thoughts. All she said was: “My gold will come.”

That’s India’s Pusarla Venkata Sindhu for you. Towering at 5’10”, she’s a bundle of energy on court. Her power smashes and unbelievable reach to return almost impossible shots makes her a nightmare for opponents.

In the final in Glasgow, though Japan’s Nozomi Okuhara came out trumps, the match will go down as arguably the best women’s singles final match. They even played a 73-shot rally that was nothing short of a treat.

The question that begs is how do you recover after such a loss? Or does a loss at such a high level, after playing so well, have any real impact?

Sindhu knows the smell of defeat quite well. Her loss to Carolina Marin in the final of the Rio Games was devastating. But she didn’t let it bring her down. Instead, she used it as a catalyst to become a much improved, determined player. What differentiates good athletes from the great ones is how they respond to failure. Sindhu has aced it, and mind you, she has lots of badminton left in her.

To reach such heights that Sindhu has reached at 22, you need to be a brilliant kid to realize early on in life what you want to do. And that’s not enough. You need an excellent support system to help you reach your goal and pick you up when down. More importantly, you need an excellent mentor/coach.