20 July,2022 06:47 AM IST | Mumbai | Sanjay Sharma
PV Sindhu during her victorious Singapore Open campaign recently. Pic/AFP
India badminton legend Prakash Padukone and former chief national coach Vimal Kumar are confident that the Indian badminton contingent will excel at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham (July 28 to August 8).
"PV Sindhu is a certainty for gold in her event. And we should have two medals in the men's singles with Kidambi Srikanth and Lakshya Sen expected to do the honours. In men's doubles too, I think we have a sure medal (Chirag Shetty-Satwiksairaj Rankireddy). Then, we have a balanced team in the team championships event too," Padukone, a gold medallist at the 1978 Commonwealth Games in Edmonton, Canada, told mid-day recently.
India won six medals (two gold, three silver, one bronze) at the 2018 edition in Gold Coast, Australia. "There is no doubt in my mind that India's badminton medal tally at this CWG will be the best ever," said Vimal, who felt that the only weak point could be in the women's doubles and mixed doubles, making things tricky in the team championships. Two teams - England and Singapore - have a good tradition in both, the mixed and the ladies doubles events. They have higher ranked players than India in both these categories. So, India must make sure that they win the ladies singles, where is no match for double Olympic medallist Sindhu.
In the men's doubles, Chirag and Satwiksairaj should be able to win without a problem and in the men's singles Srikanth and Lakshya should do well. Singapore are a dangerous team as they have a strong men's singles contender in current world champion Loh Kean Yew. However, if India meet Malaysia in the final, they have an upper hand as Malaysia's star singles player, Lee Zhi Jia, has withdrawn to concentrate on the BWF World Championships in August.
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Malaysia have a World No.6 ranked doubles pair in Aaron Chia and Sooh Wooi Yik, but they lost in the Singapore Open to India's second pair of Dhruv Kapila and MR Arjun, so Satwiksairaj and Chirag should be able to overcome them. Then, Sindhu has no opposition, so India can win three of the five match-ups.
In the individual events, Sindhu should stroll. India's men's doubles team of Chirag and Satwiksairaj should also win gold. In the men's singles, India are looking good to win two medals, but for one of those to be gold, one would have to beat a giant in Loh.
Vimal believes that a gold and silver in the men's singles is possible.
"It will be difficult, but it's not impossible. It will be great for our squad," he said. However, that will depend on the draw as Loh is World No.9 while Lakshya is 10 and Srikant is 11. So, if Loh is the top seed and Lakshya is No.2, Srikanth can face any of these two in the semi-finals and it will be sheer bad luck if two Indians clash in the penultimate round.
In the women's doubles, the CWG is a great platform for India's new pair of Gayatri Gopichand and Tressa Jolly to showcase their talent. A medal could be the perfect launch for their careers. In the mixed doubles, India's Sumeeth Reddy and Ashwini Ponappa have the experience and wherewithal to create upsets, but need to be must faster on the court.
