What if broken tapes gather a chorus, and even start to echo? They begin to sound un-broken. It’s PV Sindhu‘s game in a nutshell, around the World Championships.
There is consensus among all her coaches – from the earliest and most elite one in Hyderabad to the enterprising yet ephemeral ones that chose to not stay on – that the Indonesian coach Irwansyah, is best equipped to be there, court-side for PV Sindhu, and help her out of her funk. A lot can, and will, go sideways, as the beleaguered Indian attempts to add to her collection of five World Championship medals, given the all round loud pronouncements that she’s finished.
No one is quite predicting miracles, given she runs into World No 2 Wang Zhi Yi early. But almost anyone who understands badminton deeply, and has known Sindhu for long – her power-game, her work ethic and carefully preserved fitness, and also, watched her on court this season, will tell you Sindhu and her big-smashing game, doesn’t need miracles.
Exactly like Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, with their massive attacking games, these wise coaches even say that confidence is hugely overrated for bombastic giants like this trio.
Their form might be patchy, like Satwik-Chirag’s. Or deeply in doldrums like Sindhu’s, but there’s just too many weapons residing in them, for them to be written off at the first glimpse of a tough draw. (Satwik-Chirag have to beat Chinese Liang Weikeng-Wang Chang and potentially Aaron Chia-Soh Wooi Yik for a second World’s medal).
It’s not that wild, nor some delusional optimism to think Sindhu can pull a win or few, out of nowhere and go deep into the draw – though nobody is holding their bated breath for a fairytale that culminated in her 2019 World title already. This is the post Cinderella-wears-the-shoe and marches into sunset-epilogue. She’s 30, not 35, like a seasoned coach, notes. And the fitness, though far off the absolute ideal at 25, hasn’t totally come apart. They say she’s a training beast – in volume. The strategy and smarts though, have been in shambles for 6 years, which is what Irwansyah is tasked with salvaging.
But first, what’s wrong, or what all is wrong with the Sindhu-game.
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The double Olympic medallist always starts a match 30-70 – in 2013 when she emerged for her first Worlds and picked bronze, in Rio when she beat Tai Tzu-ying, Yihan Wang and Nozomi Okuhara, but lost to Marin for an Olympic silver, in 2019 when she won her Worlds gold, in 2021 at Tokyo for a hungry bronze, and in 2022-23 when the big-event spell lifted, and she started looking ordinary.
30-70 odds are the only consistency she’s ever struck. That 30 comes from an assured big power-game – nobody quite has answers when she nails that monster cross-court hit. It stays hit. Sindhu could smash it hard, in her sleep. Where she cedes the 70 % is the inconsistency – which is a feature not of the last 3-4 years of struggle, but of all her career. Consistency flatters people’s perception of legacy, it isn’t necessary for Sindhu, though. So chasing it has been the most ridiculous endeavor of her life. “She can lose 10 matches in a row, and still win the 11th – a big one,” a coach explains. Confidence = overrated. Form = inconsequential.
For the skilled players, those that rely on reflexes and deft touch and timing, intuitive strokeplay, like Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo or Tai Tzu-ying or even Kidambi Srikanth, confidence would matter bigly. It would need slow accumulation – win, after win after win. Sindhu and Satwik-Chirag on the other hand, are dam-bursts: they explode on opponents suddenly, and that doesn’t need tune-ups. But remember, that’s just the 30 of the 30-70.
Her coaching has been all messed up, but that also means that Irwansyah can set things right with minor tweaks.
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Sindhu, quite simply, has fallen into a playing pattern. And patterns get picked, deciphered, and neutralised soon enough. She’s in a limbo-loop of playing crosscourt-defend-defend-defend desperately-search frantically for the opponent’s lift to pulp it down-get drawn into out-of-position drives-finally get opened up for opponent to smash on her body, from where she can’t retrieve. She doesn’t really vary her plans.
While in an attempt to be proactive, she tends to stab on the drops and goes looking for a smash, the defensive patterns are littered with mistakes, and very predictable. Opponent drops – Sindhu lifts, isn’t exactly a variation that allows her to do much, when her idea of attacking aggression is simply increasing her windmill speed on the smash, and finding a way, any way, to elicit a lift to play a downward stroke.
There is a sense that Sindhu is far better than that. That, pinpoint strategy, could solve half her problems, that Irwansyah could convince her to take bolder risks and get aggressive on her defensive patterns, to mix things up.
The 30-70 probability, or the reputation of the big smash, power weapon, isn’t based solely on her hitting hard. Nor can it be applied to simply mean Sindhu responding with a cross-court to a straight shot from the opponent, or vice versa – her going down the line, when the opponent hits cross. That is Sindhu simply thinking distance, reducing badminton to geometry, when the smash weapon offers her so many more options.
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Somebody needs to encourage Sindhu to think out of the box, and that ‘somebody’ needs to be Irwansyah right now.
In doubles, Malaysian coach Tan Kim Her is bringing about this exact variety in thinking in Satwik-Chirag. They may be up and down, but they are settling into a rhythm that makes them a quality pair, and if not World Championships, then the next big tournament. The duo are evolving – and they got down to business as soon as opponents had them straitjacketed for the big game. Both mix things up, aren’t afraid to switch roles, play completely unexpected strokes, unleash the crazy, knowing that there’s a dozen ways to reach that smash-kill.
They pick new skills, can convert defence to attack, and Satwik can completely go bonkers shape-shifting to subtle skills and serves, hiding nicely behind that Hulk smash-mask. Easily India’s best bet for a medal, they have evolved in the last difficult year.
The reason why coaches are stupefied Sindhu loses so many matches is also the general state of women’s singles beyond An Se-young. Slayer of the Chinese all her life, neither Han Yue nor Wang Zhi Yi are unbeatable. It’s an ageing field largely, and Sindhu with that big game only needs to play it smart, and stay sturdy and patient on defense, for the opportunity to hit will come. She really doesn’t need to rush it.
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There is one quality that her coaches, well-wishers, demand of her – be a little irrational, a bit crazy, slightly audacious. Do not go gently & all that. It stayed unthinkable before and after that precise moment – perhaps the best match of her life, beating Tai Tzu-ying at Basel in 2019. It is very difficult to boggle the Taiwanese, but Sindhu did something mad that day. Gopichand had prompted this one. She blindly listened and jumped in. She served, and plonked herself at the net – taking control of the rally, snatching initiative. It threw off Tzu-ying, who loves her filigreed artwork on court, using the whole canvas. Sindhu stomped that day, cut the angles and made the big game count. She didn’t necessarily need the big smash, but the uncharacteristic aggression of looming large at the net, was enough.
Paris will need other pointed plays at crucial junctures. It might help to know her coaches, new and old, reckon she can do it. Or that they never really stopped believing in her.
