And once again India's campaign in the prestigious All England Open Badminton Championships had come to an end. Year after year, badminton fans in India wait for some miracle to happen but looks like the drought for India in this hallmark event is going to loom longer. In the history of the All England Championships, India has held the winner's trophy only twice.
Prakash Padukone won the Men's Singles title in 1980 and then after a long wait of 21 years, it was Gopichand who brought the title back home in 2001.
This year all hopes were on India's No.1 female player and the World No.3 Saina Nehwal, as she had managed to reach the finals here in 2015. But this time, Saina lost to World No. 9 Tai Tzu Ying of Chinese Taipei in the quarterfinals. India's another hope in women's singles, P V Sindhu had already crashed out of the tournament in the first round itself.
In Men's Singles, India's B Sai Praneeth was able to overcome the mighty Lee Chong Wei of Malaysia in the first round and his standard rallies made headlines. But Praneeth wasn't able to deliver the same in the second round and lost to Danish Hans-Kristian Vittinghus. India's highest ranked male shuttler K Srikanth and young gun Sameer Verma also couldn't move past the second round.
H S Prannoy crashed out of the tournament on the first day itself. India had already lost hopes in the doubles section where Jwala Gutta-Ashwini Ponappa lost their first round tie and so did the men's duo of B S Reddy and Manu Attri.
It has been a really long wait for the Indian fans. Last year, Saina Nehwal lost the title match to her new 'imminent rival' Carolina Marin and fans were definitely expecting a thrilling performance from this former World No.1 this time too. But that didn't happen.
India has not really been able to do well at the All-England Championships, with only 5 occasions where Indian players were able to make it to the finals in the more than 100-year-old history of the tournament.
In fact, Indian shuttlers have not really been able to deliver much at the grandest of the badminton stages, be it the All-England Championships or the World Championships. The World Superseries premiers with the All-England Championships and Indian players could not deliver well in England. But with the next stop of the superseries being the Sunrise Indian Open in New Delhi, fans would definitely be expecting better from the ace shuttlers.
