Women’s doubles ace Jwala Gutta will soon be seen in a new role after she was included in the coaches panel put forward by the Badminton Association of India (BAI) on Thursday. Gutta is among a number of former players chosen by the national body for the purpose of coaching in different zones across the country.
Bhat, Sridhar, Anand feature in men’s singles
Pullela Gopichand is still the chief national coach but dividing the country into zones will allow these veteran players to use their expertise to groom talent.
With men’s singles flourishing to a great extent in recent times, that particular category will get the most attention. 19 coaches have been allotted by the BAI for this section alone, of which the biggest names that stand out are former Commonwealth Games bronze medallist Chetan Anand, former German Open winner Arvind Bhat and 2008 Olympian, Anup Sridhar.
Saina Nehwal’s current mentor - U Vimal Kumar - is also a part of this panel.
Gutta the biggest name in the doubles section
Jwala, meanwhile, will be tutoring the women’s doubles section along with former eight-time national champion Madhumita Bisht, Pradnya Gadre and Oli Deka.
Akshay Dewalkar, who reached the men’s doubles final of the Syed Modi International twice, features in the men’s doubles category. Other experts in this group are Arun Vishnu, Sanave Thomas and Rupesh Kumar.
BAI secretary Anup Narang has said that half-yearly meetings will be held to ascertain if the shuttlers have been able to deliver. If the results turn out to be positive then they will be chosen in the national camp.
The full list of coaches:
Seniors:
Men’s Singles: P Gopichand (Chief National Coach), Siddhart Jain, Amrish Shinde, Utsav Mishra, Abhijit Nammapally, Anil Kumar, Sachin Rana, Hersen, Surender Mahajan, CHetan Anand, U Vimal Kumar, Umender Rana, Dipankar Bhattacharjee, Ravinder Singh, Arvind Bhatt, Anup Sridhar, Shrikant Bakshi, Georg Thomas, Marcos Bristow and Mitesh Hazarnis.
Men’s doubles: Uday Pawar, Vijay Deep Singh, Ajay Kanwar, Arun Vishnu, Suranjan Bhobora, Anand Khare, Akshay Dewalkar, Sanave Thomas, rupesh Kumar, Manoj Kumar, Surinder Kumar, Virender Kumar.
Women’s doubles: Jwala Gutta, Madhumita Bisht, Pradnya Gadre, Oli Deka
Juniors:
Men’s singles: Sanjay Mishra (Chief National Coach), Nikhil Kanetkar, Anshuman Hazarika, Bahiman Borah, Venkatesh, Tanveer Gill, BN Sudhakar, Sudhir Singh, CH Kiran, Kiran Makode, Jibi Verghese, Antony Jacob, Shibu Gopidas, Govardhan Reddy, G Sudhakar Reddy, D K Sen, Prem Lal, Neeraj Kumar, JVS Vidyadhar, Abhin Shyam Gupta, Sagar Chopra.
Women’s singles: Trupti Murugunde, Hufrish Nariman, Deepthi, Sayali Gokhale, manjusa Kanwar, Ankur Chandoka, Nancy Tandon, Sarada reddy, Neelima Choudhury, Poonam Tewari.
Advisors: S M Arif, Sanjeev Sachdeva, Roshan Lal Nahar, Ganguli Prasad.
