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Ever since Saina Nehwal beat PV Sindhu in the final of the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, Pullela Gopichand has been training India's two top badminton stars at separate academies, as per reports.
Confirming the development to Sportskeeda, PV Sindhu's father, PV Ramana, said, "Yes, they (Saina and Sindhu) have been training separately after they returned from CWG.
"Gopi has been dividing his time well. Like in today's morning session, Gopi trained Sindhu for one and a half hours and then he went to the second academy, After Gopi left, Sindhu was training under the Indonesian coach. Her practice is going well, she is fully fit now, there are no problems," he added.
Incidentally, Gopichand has two training academies — half a kilometre apart. The singles players have been training at the new academy that was instituted a few years back.
Saina, who had left Gopichand's academy to train under Vimal Kumar back in 2014, returned to Gopichand last September. And after that, both the shuttlers were training at the same venue. However, with Saina rediscovering her form and in the process, beating Sindhu in straight games to claim the gold medal in Gold Coast, a change was deemed necessary.
When asked why the decision was taken, Ramana conceded that badminton being an individual sport, two competitors cannot be training together. If they do, both will get to know about the others' strengths, weaknesses, training regime, which is a 'problem'.
He said, "See, if the two are training together, both will get to know how the other is training, how fit she is, what she is working on, what difficulties she is facing. Now, this is an individual sport. When a competitor gets to know about these things, it becomes a bit of a problem. That's why this decision was taken, keeping in mind the interests of both the players."
Is Saina and Sindhu training separately a good move? Can Gopichand indeed divide his time between the two? Let us know in the comments section, what you think about the move.
