PV Sindhu, Learning The Importance Of Getting Angry!

After years of sweetly cinching victory after victory, Olympic champion PV Sindhu is learning the importance of getting angry, finds Nishat Fatima

- Nishat Fatima

Unless you shout, nobody is going to play,” coach Pullela Gopichand tells his protégé Pusarla Venkata Sindhu. He has her standing at the very centre of the eight courts at the Gopichand Badminton Academy, between courts four and five. Dozens of players have stopped their games. All eyes are on her.

She is not unused to this. Sindhu has already won two back-to-back bronze medals at the BWF World Championships and has been competing in tournaments since she was 10; she is used to being watched. But this is different. She is being asked to voice aggression, to acknowledge it and unleash it. 

It was at the 2013 World Championships, where she earned her first bronze, that Sindhu acquired the moniker ‘giant killer’. She had won against defending champion Wang Yihan of China and former World No 1 Wang Shixian to reach the semi-finals. It was the first time an Indian woman had bagged a singles medal. She did it again in 2014. And last month, she won the China Open Super Series.

But her wins were always characterised by endurance and quiet persistence. Where her opponents grunted and screamed and punched their fists in the air, Sindhu calmly played her point and readied for the next. In 2013, at the semi-final match that led to the bronze, her opponent was Ratchanok Intanon from Thailand. They were both the same age, 18. Yet, Intanon appeared in command of the court; Sindhu could well have been the wallflower.