Ishaan Bhatnagar: A high-flying Olympic dream, followed by ACL and what happens to a badminton player when the knee crash lands on you

It’s awkward for Ishaan Bhatnagar when he exchanges polite and fake smiles with a few fellow players, as he finds his way back on the badminton circuit. He reminds himself to summon a cliched greeting, bite back hurt and move ahead, feeling nothing.

Ranked World No 18 to start off January of 2023, the then 21-year-old from Raipur had been brimming with confidence about qualifying for the Paris Olympics in mixed doubles with Tanisha Crasto. Playing the Senior Nationals at Pune, he landed awkwardly at the Balewadi stadium, smashing his knee – a painful Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) and lateral meniscus busted to a mash. Many wished him for a quick return. And some didn’t text at all, no matter. But he would hear later of what they spoke when he was gone, and a goner.

There’s no way of knowing for sure. “Memories of the knee pain, sleepless nights will fade off, and I’ll hopefully forget. But it taught me life on the worst dark days. Nobody actually texted me saying this, but I know there were people who said, “good it happened to him. Now we get a chance.’ And I get it now – everyone is a competitor here,” Bhatnagar says on his international return, playing doubles alongside Sankar Prasad at an International Challenge in Kazakhstan this last week.

A ruptured knee ahead of Olympics qualification has always been tragic for any athlete. But it sends Bhatnagar down some pretty dark alleys, even without starting on the sting of how a miniscule number of peers responded in the cut-throat world of badminton. “There of course were many who prayed for me, and said they were keen to see me back playing,” he says, dismissing talk of having a dramatic point to prove. But the boulevard of broken knees in shuttle can be a long, difficult path to navigate physically, without this additional chimpy chatter.

It’s of course about the explosive lunge in this sport, and dodgy knees have ended myriad careers, and left a fair few tottering helplessly, like Kidambi Srikanth’s shock dip from late 2018 to 2021. Not many outside the fraternity understand what that shattered knee does to heads of shuttlers.

At Pune, not many heard the crack when Bhatnagar, prancing around with exuberance matching Tanisha’s energy, fell in a heap. He says he blacked out in the immediate aftermath and took a while to get back to his senses. He recalls an ambulance ride the next day on the Expressway, still in a daze.

Accepting that the Asian Games and Olympics dream was over, was hard, from a point where the pairing were poised to take off. The hospitalisation in Mumbai, the surgery are all a blur except for the reassuring words of Dr Dinshaw Pardiwala. “The injury changed a lot about me. I got a better perspective and mindset. Mentally, physically I got tougher. And my pain tolerance got high.”

He would return to Hyderabad where he had been training for 10 years after having moved from Raipur in his early teens. He got into a mental funk there though, watching everyone else play and train, while he was still barely standing straight. He would return home and occupy himself preparing for a bunch of exams.

“Any operation gives you a baby leg,” he says which means he had to re-learn to walk, sit, jump and jog. The 1 month-limpy walking was a milestone, noticed and hurrayed by none but himself. The two-month walking without a limp was another private celebration.

Countless athletes botch their knees. But only a medal post that evokes curiosity of what they went through in those silent times, like Carolina Marin’s. For a relatively unknown or fast forgotten athlete, the silence can sting. Coach Pullela Gopichand, who himself suffered a career-ending knee break at Pune, would guide Bhatnagar with pithy advice. “He just told me his surgery had taken 6-7 hours 20 years ago, mine was done in 1 hour 20 minutes. Medical science had advanced and I would get ok quicker. He told me to stay mentally strong, and emerge a better version of myself.”

For the first time, Bhatnagar would think about how he had to deal with himself. Years of training and competition on a hamster wheel and a steadily surging junior career had been halted in one second. “In younger years, we take our parents for granted. But my mom and dad were pillars of support. And my mother literally taught me to walk again. I even had an Insta post that read, ‘Nobody on earth can love you more than parents’. Those were my toughest days. Friends and siblings come and go. But parents stay strong,” he says.

Bhatnagar would spend 4 months with a dedicated rehab trainer at Bangalore’s Invictus, and the personalised attention would restore confidence, though he broke down often. He recalls attending rehab sessions without having slept a wink from worry, only because a routine calms the mind. He broke down and cried in pain while re-learning court movements, but still going ahead because that’s the process. The fear of re-injuring on the landing site on the knee was gulped down some days, and on others he shook with fright. Returning to tournament play took longer than he thought.

At Kazakhstan, Ishaan Bhatnagar’s run ended in quarters, but he was upbeat about re-starting the journey, enjoying his badminton. He will root from far for his former partner Tanisha who might secure a women’s doubles qualification, and not broach anything about reuniting, because she started her partnership with Dhruv Kapila, and needs to focus on her immediate career challenge.

Paris wasn’t to be for him, but he’s a happy 23 resuming his badminton. “For me, it’s taking it slow and seeing how the knee goes,” he says, not begrudging those who grudged him his good run at 21. “ACL is so bad, I hope no enemy player suffers it or no human goes through it,” he laughs, recalling the shooting pain when he couldn’t even bend his leg.

Did he listen to inspirational poetry or have a song for motivation? “No.” He just cried, un-musically.

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