What does Priyanshu Rajawat need to become a world beater in badminton

The losses that he collects in 2024 around the world, including at Delhi to HS Prannoy this past week, are going to protect Priyanshu Rajawat from the delusion of inevitable success that accompanies young Indians who are ridiculously talented. While his win against Lakshya Sen is the reassuring stat (and start) in the season that tells him he’s in with a chance to succeed internationally, with that same incredible talent.

Stumbling at times, strutting at others, the youngster who turns 22 in a fortnight, is promising to keep Sen and Kidambi Srikanth on their toes in Olympic qualification season. At World No 30, he needs mammoth points to catch up to Top 16. But he’s one amongst only three shuttlers in the Top 30 to have played 17 or fewer tournaments in the previous year’s time. If his back and ankle hold up and he does end up playing a bulk of the 8 remaining qualification events, he can plot the unlikeliest of surges. It helps that he’s not expected to make it to Paris, and can play freely.

But 2024 is about making him internationally ready to pounce on the post-Paris lull. It’s a lot of hardwork, because he has the winner’s game alright, but not necessarily the survivor’s one on the brutal circuit.

What punched Prannoy a tad, and packed off Sen is what former international Aravind Bhat calls Priyanshu’s nippy game. He’s never really set the junior stage on fire, never had the strength back then either. So he was never going to be blasting off the blocks like Sindhu did at 17. He’s more in the Srikanth mould of strokeplay and impressive attack, and is called mini-Sriki even, though he’s got nothing beyond Orleans Masters Super 300 to back the claims of him being the next KS who had titles at Thailand and China by this age.

India’s Priyanshu Rajawat and compatriot Lakshya Sen after the men’s singles Round of 32 badminton match at the Yonex Sunrise India Open 2024, in New Delhi. (PTI)

But the last 2-3 years, have seen spurts of attacks in matches, where Rajawat’s nippy, quick half smashes mean that opponents dread giving him any free hits. Picked by Pullela Gopichand for his outrageous foot and hand speed at age 9, he’s gotten even speedier and is learning to control the rallies at that breakneck pace, so that even the half smashes become a weapon.

He’s tricky enough with a decent parallel and net game, and getting even better. In short, on fast courts, Priyanshu Rajawat promises to be as lethal as Srikanth was once. He has one of the wickedest stick smashes going around the circuit. And though he sweats a lot and looks tired mid-match, the big hits can rain down and sting the eyes longer than an opponent comes prepared for.

Invariably, India’s men’s singles players run into each other far too often in teasing draws, and it irritates the hell out of them to deal with the pressure of taking down a compatriot. Right now, Rajawat is irritating the seniors more than getting irritated himself. Still new to the game, he’s revelling in making their life miserable, and occasionally winning against them. He’s taken down Srikanth and Sen already.

But even if they play him often in training, the nip in his stick smashes doesn’t stop pricking their confidence. Rajawat remains a threat. “Meditation is helping me not get angry on court. And I’m understanding seniors’ games more,” he casually explained after beating Sen. The stick smash and variations from the back that day, were breathtaking.

It’s how the likes of Lin Dan and Lee Chong Wei started – with hard-hitting games that ruckused with status quo and blew away contemporaries and two batches before and after them of other talents from their own nations. But it wasn’t the rampaging fast game that made them world beaters. And here’s the cautionary tale from Srikanth for Rajawat, though Srikanth had far superior strokes and innate sense of constructing rallies with net sorcery. Rajawat is still a quirk-in-progress.

India’s Priyanshu Rajawat returns a shot during the men’s singles Round of 32 badminton match against compatriot Lakshya Sen at the Yonex Sunrise India Open 2024, in New Delhi. (PTI)

But he’ll run into a similar struggle for which he’ll need to learn from Prannoy’s late emergence, albeit learn early so that he becomes formidable on the international circuit.

Over 70 percent of playing arenas around the world are slow court conditions. Massive stadia, sluggish shuttles, that can frustrate a player with Rajawat’s skillset.

Bhat explains that Rajawat has the stick smash, but not the full-blooded kill stroke, a mic drop that Prannoy or Srikanth possessed. While his strength with weights and nutrition is progressively getting better, it is in the long rallies that there remain questions on how he will sustain his pacy incisions without a regular rally-ender, the antidote at the end of long exchanges, pulled out at will. Prannoy can absorb the defensive pressure for long and still pack a sting in his full blooded smash kill. Rajawat’s big smash is still in the making, while his defense is respectable but not dazzling like Sen’s.

The long patient rallies are de rigueur with Kunlavut Vitidsarn and Kodai Naraoka, routinely overhauling far more stroke-filled games through attrition. All of Lee Zii Jia, Anders Antonsen and even Li Shifeng have had to scaffold their attacks with the boring task of survival kits for long rallies in cavernous slow arenas.

Prannoy is an all-conditions player, who too like Super Dan and Chong Wei had the attacking arsenal to gloat, but propped up his retrieving capabilities to become slow-court fool-proof. Srikanth is way too talented to not negotiate this, but at the peak of his career, he had his problems on slow courts and Rajawat would do well to learn from it. Sen loves slow courts that make his life easier in defense, he dives around valiantly anyways and can patiently bicker in back and forths, and his is a problem of too much patience. Rajawat though is still to build the long rally rigour mode.

He has shown a sufficiently respectful appetite for a fight against seniors – isn’t afraid to get stuck into them. And has shown the maturity to not buy into the hype of talent created around him, knowing that succeeding internationally is damn difficult even if he’s anointed prince-in-waiting. He doesn’t have the really big upset wins yet, but the game has visibly improved like was seen against Sen to whom he had lost 24-22 last time in the decider from being 18-14 up. This time he came from a set down.

India’s Priyanshu Rajawat celebrates his victory after the men’s singles Round of 32 badminton match against compatriot Lakshya Sen at the Yonex Sunrise India Open 2024, in New Delhi. (PTI)

“He has a stable head, and is not overawed by seniors. He’ll take another year to really settle and there will be big losses too. But 2025 should be when he cracks Top 10,” Bhat says of a realistic progression. “But can he improve his rally game is the question. Because on slow courts, his rally is suspect. It’s a good age to improve that aspect,” Bhat flags.

This requires tremendous hard work in high-intensity training sessions – something that Gopichand is as good at extracting as he is with his on-court acumen. Rajawat’s fitness will have to rise to the levels that Prannoy brought himself up to, in the last season — to take heavy training loads at unreal heart rates. It’s a beautiful attacking game that Rajawat is in possession of, with dollops of deceptive tricks to add. But the best players on the circuit come prepared for the drudgery of the long rally to go with the beauty of that sensational stick smash. That’s Rajawat’s challenge going forward, whether he watches the Paris Olympics on television or is playing in it.

“I want to qualify for the Olympics this year only, no matter what. There are enough tournaments to cover points,” he said after beating Sen. Next day he lost to Prannoy in a tough three setter, and picked an ankle niggle. The ambition is admirable – not for him, the deferring of goals conveniently to the next Olympics far out on some distant horizon four or eight years on. But there’s mischief to be unleashed in the coming season, and mysteries of top names to be unlocked in 2024, before he – if he – emerges as the main act of Indian badminton. It’s hard work, and his success isn’t strictly inevitable, just because there’s talent bubbling in there. The stick smash though is a thing of Marvel, from Day 1.

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