In 2015, Srikanth Kidambi was the toast of the nation after capturing his second Superseries title in four months. The second one was even more special because it came at home at the BWF Metlife Yonex Sunrise India Open Superseries. That victory made him the only Indian men's singles winner of this New Delhi event, joining a pantheon of greats such as Lee Chong Wei and Taufik Hidayat.
Two years later, the significance of this event is different for the 24-year-old. This is where the former champion will start his journey back to the top echelons of the sport after falling out of the top 30. It was a stress fracture on his right ankle that he sustained at the Japan Open in September which rendered him out of action for three months – his longest hiatus in the last five years.
Now, it is at the India Open where he starts rebuilding himself into the player he once was.
“I just want to start fresh from this India Open and forget what all happened earlier,” confesses the former champion in an exclusive chat with Sportskeeda.
"I haven't set any target for myself from this tournament. I really want to play my 100%, get back my confidence from the first round. You know the first round is always critical after a break. I feel many top players struggle in the first round and after they clear that, they go on to win the tournament," he adds.
An injury-induced layoff does more harm to the mental fortitude of an athlete than it does to his physical strength. Which is why 'confidence' was a recurrent word in this interview.
Srikanth repeatedly insisted that he is once again feeling confident about his game and his fitness, all of which had gone missing in the past few months. He played his first BWF tournament at the Syed Modi International after a four-month gap where he succumbed to a semi-final defeat as the defending champion.
At the German Open in February, he put up a gritty fight before bowing out to the Olympic champion Chen Long in the pre-quarter-finals. He, however, could not carry that momentum into the prestigious All England Championships the very next week and crashed out to Zhao Junpeng in the first round despite taking a game off the 53rd ranked Chinese.
“I feel my strategy wasn't good in the third game. I gave him a big lead in the first 11 points which I could have avoided. Those things could have been avoided if I had been playing continuously. But because I played after a very big gap, those are a kind of learning experience for me now,” he explains when asked about what went wrong there.
That match is crucial for Srikanth now as he faces that same player once more in the first round of the India Open. But this time, he is raring to go.
“I feel very confident now about my fitness after the break. I got two weeks of training after the All England Championships, so I am looking forward for a good three weeks now.”
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With three Superseries tournaments lined up in three consecutive weeks, this is a vital period for the Pullela Gopichand protege to secure a World Championships qualification as the cut-off date closes on the last Thursday of April.
“My next important goal is to qualify for the World Championships. For that to happen, these three tournaments in the coming weeks are really important for me to get the entry into the World Championships,” he states.
That is because his ranking has now slipped beyond the 30s as a result of the hiatus. It is in stark contrast to the days in the second half of the 2016 season when Srikanth was beginning to look at his threatening best once again. The strokes were there, the movement, too, the analytical skills were evident, and he was clearly enjoying himself on the court again.
He made it to the semi-finals of the Australian Open Superseries in June and then backed it up with a quarter-final finish at the Rio Games where he stretched the two-time Olympic champion Lin Dan to three tight games.
Just when he was looking to build on it, injury struck and disaster happened. It was a 'disturbing' period for the badminton ace, by his own admission.
"I was really playing well at that time and was feeling very confident with the way I was playing. I was then away from the international circuit for four months which never happened since 2012. It is something that really disturbed me but that is how the sport goes and you have to get through all these things."
Does he have any tinge of regret that the injury was the consequence of pushing himself too much?
He doesn't, because the Olympics was his biggest goal then and everything else could have taken a backseat.
“For me, the Olympics was something very important, so I really pushed myself. You never know what level you can reach until you push yourself. I didn't think of injuries when I was training for the Olympics.”
And after all that he has been through since then, he doesn't forget to add: “I was very happy that the injury didn't happen before the Olympics.”
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This has sent him hurtling down the rankings and he now sits at 31st, way below his career-best ranking of 3rd that he had achieved in 2015. Does it bother him?
“No, because I have been there already, I know what to do to get back there. So, I am really not thinking. If I really play well and start performing, I know I'll come back there,” he promises.
Perhaps the only positive thing that a player can have from a break is to have a new perspective on his sport. And Srikanth is no exception. He spells it out that he has come back with more spirit and there cannot be a better tournament than the India Open to show it.
“After such a big break, you definitely want to perform. You have more spirit to play. India Open is a tournament where I have done really well. so I am thinking of starting well,” he says with the eagerness very much discernible in his voice.
