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Ahead of the Badminton World Championships, starting in Jakarta on August 10, chief coach and former All-England Open winner Pullela Gopichand has said that Indian shuttlers have a chance to win medals in the tournament and rankings matter very little and its all about who rises up to the occasion on that day, who will come out trumps.
"We stand a good chance to win medals at multiple events this time but having said that it is the World Championship, we have to deliver to win and it is important to perform on that particular day and ranking doesn't matter. But we can say that we have a few players who can get into the medal slot," the 41-year-old told PTI.
Talking about two-time bronze medalist at the Championships, PV Sindhu, who hasn't been in the best of forms lately, Gopichand said he wasn't worried about her form and asked everybody to give her some time, to get back into her groove.
"I am not expecting her to perform consistently after a break of three months. It is not a matter of concern, I think we have to give her a little time,” he further said to PTI.
While on one hand Sindhu has found it hard to progress into the later stages of tournaments, Parupalli Kashyap has been in good form in recent times, defeating world No.1 Chen Long en route to his semifinal exit at the Indonesia Open last month.
Speaking about the 28-year-old shuttler, Gopichand said that Kashyap has overcome many a roadblock, by putting in the hard yards and is in the best space at the moment, as far as his game is concerned.
"I think physically, it is always a challenge for Kashyap because of his body type. He has asthma also. But he puts in a lot of effort on the court and in my book he is playing the best badminton right now,” he said.
Srikanth needs to learn to adapt to conditions better: Gopichand
While he may be India’s highest ranked player at the moment, Kidambi Srikanth hasn't been able to deliver consistent results, losing in the second rounds in the previous two tournaments and also having a disappointing outing at the Sudirman Cup.
Talking about him, Gopichand said that Srikanth must learn to adapt to conditions better and added that they were working on his game and in time to come, he will improve and get better.
"He needs to understand that he has to adapt to the conditions a little better. It is going to challenging because people will give him a lot of respect and prepare for him. We are working on it and hopefully we will overcome it,” he said.
When asked about the general preparation for the Worlds, the chief coach said that they had a good training camp and also expressed satisfaction with the progress made by hs Prannoy and confirmed that he would participate in the tournament.
“We had a good training camp for the event. There is (Parupalli) Kashyap, Srikanth, (PV) Sindhu, (HS) Prannoy. Of course Prannoy has just recovered from his injury but I am happy with the way he is progressing and he would be playing the event," he concluded.
