I succumbed to pressure: Sai Praneeth on Tokyo performance

The Hyderabad shuttler says he missed coach Santoso in Tokyo

Hyderabad: For B Sai Praneeth the Tokyo Olympics was a big disaster. The World Championship bronze medallist unexpectedly lost to lowly ranked players — Israel’s Misha Zilberman (47th in the world) and Mark Caljouw of the Netherlands (23rd in the world) — in his men’s Group D matches to make an early exit from the Games.

“I succumbed to pressure. Somehow I could not get my rhythm. I made mistakes and everything went wrong for me. There were good practice sessions but I still missed the match tournaments. It was a good chance for me at the Tokyo Olympics but somehow I could not make it to the knockout stage,’’ said a dejected Praneeth.

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Now ranked No.15 in the world, Praneeth, however, did admit that he missed his coach Agus Dwi Santoso at Tokyo. ”I did miss him (Santoso) as he was not given the permission.

I have been training with him for the past one year and suddenly I had a different coach in Park Tae Sang. It was a setback of sorts although I knew before the start of the Olympics that Santoso would not be there in Tokyo. To add to that I suffered back pain and I did not have a physio. Also the lack of match practice did not help my cause,’’ he said.

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