Sai Praneeth eyes second World Championships medal

Hyderabad: Indian singles badminton player B Sai Praneeth has a rare distinction of being the only second Indian male shuttler to win a medal at the BWF World Championships. The 29-year-old clinched a bronze medal in the last edition in 2019 in Basel to join legendary shuttler Prakash Padukone, who also won bronze at the […]

Hyderabad: Indian singles badminton player B Sai Praneeth has a rare distinction of being the only second Indian male shuttler to win a medal at the BWF World Championships.

The 29-year-old clinched a bronze medal in the last edition in 2019 in Basel to join legendary shuttler Prakash Padukone, who also won bronze at the event way back in 1983. Sai Praneeth, the then 16th seed in the tournament, defeated Jason Anthony HO-shue of Canada and Lee Dong-Keun before stunning sixth seed Anthony Ginting to enter quarterfinals. He then knocked out Jonatan Christie with another upset victory to enter the semis. However, he went down to Kento Momota to take a bronze to end the 36-year-old drought.

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Two years later, Sai Praneeth is not thinking too much about the medal. He is solely focused on adding another medal to his tally of World Championships. “Yes, it was a good memory. It felt great to win a medal after such a long gap. But that was two years ago. I am not thinking too much about it. A lot has changed since that medal. I am looking at it as a fresh challenge,” he said from Huelva, Spain.

“The target obviously is to win a medal. The draw is tough. I need to play well.” The former Singapore Open Super Series (2017) winner, however, said that playing back-to-back tournaments recently would have an impact going into this year’s final tournament. “It is very challenging to play back-to-back tournaments in two months. Not just physically, mentally too it is draining. Your body and mind won’t be fresh. But it is the World Championships. I want to do well,” he added. Sai Praneeth will take on Mark Caljouw in the opening encounter against whom the Indian suffered a loss in the Olympics.

The preparations weren’t ideal for the Indian with lack of specialist coach. With coach Agus Dwi Santoso quitting from the post in October, the Indian players were left in the dark without a coach till now. “It is very tough to train without a coach. You have a set routine everyday but with no one to take care of that, it is very difficult. (Pullela) Gopichand took care of the training but we are without a coach for this World Championships. Park (Tae Sang) will be here with us for the matches. But he can’t dedicate a lot of time since he is committed to PV Sindhu’s training.”

With the news of Indonesian coach Mulyo Handoyo returning to India to train the singles players doing the rounds, Sai Praneeth, who had seen good success with the coach, said it would definitely help them.

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