PV Sindhu’s piling concerns dissected by coach Vimal Kumar: ‘Her reactions need massive improvement, there’s a sudden lack of confidence’

For a while now, PV Sindhu has been chasing shadows of her own past greatness. She’s simultaneously fleeing daily searing, scything comparisons with a glorious apparition from her own prequel, each time she plays. And is expected to deal with whatever are the diminishing physical powers from age 18 to 28 with a strong mind, because that’s what bonafide champions do.

Coach Vimal Kumar, who sat for Sindhu’s last two matches at the Badminton Asia Championships, concedes he doesn’t take the din and fuss of social media where she’s casually scribbled off daily, seriously. And he reckons the frequent dissections of her erratic game, won’t bog Sindhu down. “She’s a top player and will get both criticism and praise obviously. I don’t know how she deals with it, but that shouldn’t be a worry. What I can say is, sweet talk won’t help at this moment. Sometimes, players need a kick on the backside,” he says, adding that Sindhu’s far too good a player to not be bluntly spoken to by her coaches.

But Sindhu is India’s only world champion in this sport. And no one is quite equipped to understand how someone who took down a fleet of top Chinese challengers for a large part of the last 10 years, is supposed to cope with suddenly crumbling 18-21, 21-13, 17-21 against a moderately okay-caliber Chinese and stay stoic. Some points on Thursday at Ningbo, China, were silly when not downright sluggish. Sindhu went down to Han Yue in 70 minutes where the quality of her play had more people than Vimal, clucking in vexation.

“I’m disappointed,” he said, after the match, as Sindhu wasted a fine 11-5 and 15-10 start in the opener to fritter 6 points, fall back, then force a decider, and promptly fizzle out after leading 8-4 in the third. Vimal had told her after her laboured first-round win against Goh Jin Wei, “Your tendency is to start with a poor match in opening rounds but come through from there on. Today she started well too, and both opponents were not of her calibre so she should’ve won in straight sets. But there’s a sudden lack of confidence that wasn’t there a month and half ago,” he adds.

Sindhu’s more overwhelming tendency these days has been to cede points in a clump – both Set 1 and 3, she lost 6 on the trot between points 10 to 17. She also picked up 6 in a row in the second, but that makes her patchy play even more pronounced.

Vimal breaks it down, brutally too. “Her reactions need massive improvement, she’s not responding quickly. And shot selection is very poor. In practice when I watch her, she has great variety. But she’s not implementing it in matches at all,” he says. In the last few tournaments, she’s flown off the lid too while the game retreats into a shell. “The body language is poor and she gets very desperate to pick points and anxiety is draining her out greatly,” he explained.

The culprit on this day was her predictable strokes, when Han Yue would max out her slight deception in hold-and-flicks. Sindhu wanted to assert herself at the net, but beyond the aggression, there wasn’t too much construction of a cunning point. She would blindly push the shuttle to different corners, getting her lengths and judgments all wrong on when to play straight or cross or opt for the tumble. The net decision-making was in shambles, reckons Vimal.

Sindhu had appeared far too tight and wasn’t playing too freely both days, Vimal says. “She’s way better than these girls. But they were anticipating her easily. Her choices were predictable. If they played down her left, she would flick it cross and Han was literally waiting for her to do that,” he said. Sindhu also stuck to a playing-downward metronome unceasingly, instead of trying attacking punch clears, he said.

At one point, he was hoping Sindhu would push the pace, but it was the Chinese who took control of the cadence of the rally, dictating speed.

“She has everything in her game. She has the net strokes. She thinks maybe her fitness is not good enough, but I don’t think that’s the case at all. She’s fit, but not applying herself on court, and low on confidence,” Vimal says. “Prakash (Padukone) and Agus (Dwi Santoso) will look into her sessions well I’m sure, but no amount of training will help if she doesn’t play fearlessly.”

Sindhu will have to make her own breaks, he stresses because luck runs out faster than anyone can guess. “She was late for every return and the footspeed does need to go up. She was playing really well in February,” he stresses. “She has to make it happen for herself and can’t wait for fortune to favour her. There are people to help her, and she’s a very good player. All she can do is try and have a go at it,” he says.

While Vimal reckons it might be too late now, he believes Sindhu ought to have played the Uber Cup, to get good quality matches against the No 1s of top nations under her belt. “Win or lose, she would’ve faced a different player which is good for her and would’ve tested her. And the only way to gain confidence is by playing those tough matches. I would’ve preferred she thought of it deeply and rationally,” he stated. Vimal however wasn’t too cognizant of how much the piling criticism with each loss can drag her further down mentally, and admitted it was her call as top player to decide in an Olympic year.

Sindhu’s struggles are finding outlets in aggression, but not necessarily in a well-thought-out game. “She’s a softer personality than Saina. They are different. Yes, she’s playing a little too emotionally, but it’s not a major issue. Her game has everything, it will come together,” he hopes, adding her attack is formidable enough to not need fake fierceness.

Disclaimer: The copyright of this article belongs to the original author. Reposting this article is solely for the purpose of information dissemination and does not constitute any investment advice. If there is any infringement, please contact us immediately. We will make corrections or deletions as necessary. Thank you.