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Decades before Saina Nehwal became the international icon she is today, Prakash Padukone had put Indian badminton on the map. Today, badminton is considered to be the second most popular sport in the country. If Indian badminton players are counted amongst the best in the world today, credit, in no small measure, goes to those who came before them, playing pioneering roles and shaping the future of the game in the country. As India prepares to assert itself even more firmly in badminton, let us take a look at the ten greatest achievements in the sport by Indian shuttlers till date.
#1 Prakash Padukone\'s win at All England Championship
A child prodigy, Prakash Padukone started playing badminton at a very young age, participating in the Karnataka State Junior championship when he was all of seven years old.
He began to get noticed when, as a 16-year old, he won his first National Senior Championship. His 1971 triumph at the National Championship was to be the beginning of a nine-year domination at the event.
Despite having won the bronze at the 1974 Asiad in Tehran, he wouldn’t come to the attention of the International media till 1978 when he won the Gold medal in the Commonwealth Games held at Edmonton. But, greater laurels awaited him in 1980.
Padukone hit a purple patch in 1980. After winning the Danish and the Swedish Opens, Padukone set his sights on the All England Open Badminton Championship, widely regarded as the most prestigious event in badminton. In the final, Padukone overcame his Indonesian rival Liem Swi King in a largely one-sided final to become the first Indian ever to win the title. The score of the final read 15-3, 15-10.
#2 Prakash Padukone\'s rise to World Number one
Following a highly productive 1980 season, when he won three titles including the All England Open Badminton Championship, Prakash Padukone added yet another feather to his cap, when he reached the World Number one ranking.
Padukone was the first Indian to attain the top ranking in badminton. The following year, Padukone went on to win the inaugural edition of the Badminton World Cup held in Kuala Lumpur. In November 1981, he won the first ever Indian open prize-money tournament, the Indian Masters (which is now the Indian Open) in Pune.
More success followed in the ensuing years, as he went on to win the Dutch Open and Hong Kong Open in 1982 while finishing with the bronze at the World Championships in 1983.
He called time on his glittering career in 1989. In 1994, he founded the badminton academy in Bangalore, an institution which counts Pullela Gopichand among its alumni.
#3 Syed Modi clinches Gold at Commonwealth Games
Syed Modi was a seven-time National champion in badminton, having won the title eight times in a row from 1980-87 and was one of Indian badminton’s most prominent faces before his life was brought to a ghastly end, when he was murdered in 1988. He was 26 years old at the time of his death.
At the time of his death, Modi was touted to be the next sensation in Indian badminton after Prakash Padukone and a cursory glance at his career records will inform us that such claims weren’t unfounded. Modi had won the Austrian International Open twice in consecutive years (1983-84). He had also won the bronze at the Delhi Asian Games in 1982.
The Gold medal that he won as a 20-year old at the Commonwealth Games in Australia, however, remains his most memorable achievement. In the final, Modi came back from one game down to beat Nick Yates of England 7-15, 15-5, 15-7.
#4 Pullela Gopichand\'s win at All England Open
As a child, Pullela Gopichand’s first passion was cricket before his elder brother weaned him off the sport and advised him to take up badminton. All these years later, Gopichand is sure to look upon his brother’s advice as words that turned his life around.
After showing promise as a college kid, when he captained the Indian combined universities team in 1990 and 91, Gopichand announced himself on the national scene when he won his first National Championship title in 1996. Much like his coach, Prakash Padukone, Gopichand too went on to dominate the event, winning the title five times on the trot.
At the Commonwealth Games held in Kuala Lumpur in 1998, Gopichand impressed, winning the bronze in the individual event and helping his team earn the silver.
However, it was in 2001 that he went on to keep his tryst with glory. 21 years had elapsed since Prakash Padukone had won the All England Open Badminton Championship and hopes were high on his disciple as Gopichand took to the court that year.
In the final of the All England Open, Gopichand was pitted against then World Number One Peter Gade and the odds, it seemed were clearly stacked against the Indian. But Gopichand held his nerves to beat Gade in straight games, 15-12, 15-6 to end a 21-year drought for India at the event.
#5 Saina Nehwal\'s Olympic Glory
As an 18-year old at the Beijing Olympics, Saina Nehwal had displayed composure and determination much beyond her years as she became the first Indian shuttler to reach the quarter-finals at the Olympics. But, her failure to win an Olympic medal kept gnawing at her for four years and in 2012, Saina made reparations for her loss four years ago.
Heading into the London Olympics, Saina was in imperious form, having won three titles – the Swiss Open, the Thailand Open Grand Prix and the Indonesian Open,the last of which she won for a third time. Predictably, the pressure on the young Saina were inconceivably high when the London Olympics got underway.
Although her dreams of winning an Olympic Gold were sent crashing in the semi-final by Yihan Wang, who dispatched her with ease, Saina kept India’s hopes of its first medal in badminton alive.
Despite her win in the bronze medal playoff coming as a courtesy of a walkover given by Wang Xin of China, Saina’s performance in the match showed her to be a deserving winner.
#6 P V Sindhu\'s Bronze at World Championships
P V Sindhu had firmly established her reputation on the junior circuit, having won the Gold at the Commonwealth Youth Games in 2011 and at the Asian Junior Championships in 2012. Thus, expectations were predictably high when she burst onto the senior circuit in 2012.
Undeterred by the loss in the final of the National Championship to Sayali Gokhale, Sindhu set about making improvements to her game in order to succeed at international events.
At theGuagzhouWorld Championships in 2013, Sindhu sent the badminton community into a tizzy, when she beat defending champion and second seed Wang Yihan of China to book a berth in the quarter-final of the event. But, it was her victory against seventh seed Wang Shixian in the quarter-final that created history. By dint of entering the semi-final, Sindhu had assured herself and India a medal in the World Championship for the first time since Prakash Padukone won the bronze in 1983. She also became the first woman shuttler to win a medal at the World Championships.
Sindhu went on to do an encore of her Guangzhou performance at the Copenhagen World Championship next year, when she won the bronze yet again. Sindhu is also the youngest recipient of the Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian honour in India.
#7 Kidambi Srikanth\'s win at China Open
Playing against the local hero Boonsak Ponsana, in front of a hostile crowd, Kidambi Srikanth prevailed to win the final of the Thailand Open to mark the beginning of an illustrious chapter in his career.
Following the win at Thailand Open, Srikanth’s career graph has, quite literally, taken off. Later in 2013, Srikanth went on to beat Parupalli Kashyap in the final of the Indian Senior National Championship and had a good season with the Awadhe Warriors in the Indian Badminton League.
However, all his previous accomplishments paled into insignificance when contrasted against the upset that he caused at the China Open in 2014. Although he had no title to show for his efforts heading into the China Open in November 2014, Srikanth’s game had improved remarkably since his win at Thailand the previous year. He had finished runner-up at the India Open and had played a crucial role in helping the Indian badminton contingent reach the semi-final at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games.
In the final of the China Open, he was pitted against two-time Olympic Gold medallist Lin Dan, who is regarded as one of the greatest players ever. No one gave Srikanth even a ghost of a chance to win the title. But, Srikanth sprang a surprise when he took out Lin Dan in straight games, 21-19, 21-17 to break the Chinese stranglehold over the event.
Srikanth became the first non-Chinese player to win the China Open since Wong Choon Han of Malaysia in 2002.
#8 Parupalli Kashyap\'s Gold at Glasgow Commonwealth
At the London Olympics in 2012, Parupalli Kashyap looked unstoppable. Although Kashyap had been playing in the international circuit for quite some time, his achievements till then hadn’t prepared anyone for the show that he put on in the group stage in London. Kashyap won all his games at the group stage, even shocking Nguyen Tien Minh of Vietnam en route to the quarter-final. However, then World Number One Lee Chong Wei of Malaysia brought his Olympic campaign to a halt in the quarter-final leaving Kashyap visibly distraught.
Prior to his stupendous show in the London Olympics, Kashyap had won the bronze in the individual event at the Delhi Commonwealth Games apart from playing a vital role in guiding the team to a silver in the same event. But, he had failed to progress beyond the semi-finals at the other International events.
2014 did not begin well for Kashyap, who returned after having battled ‘freak injuries’. His performances in the Malaysia Open and the Indian Open Grand Prix Gold events were far from satisfactory and though there were intermittent bursts of the brilliance that had seen him race to the quarter-finals at the Olympics, his form continued to decline. But, he succeeded in arresting his plummeting form in the Commonwealth Games at Glasgow.
Having settled for the bronze in the previous edition of the Commonwealth Games, Kashyap was gunning for gold this time around and made it to the final after taking out Rajiv Ousef of England, who had ousted him in the semi-final in 2010. Kashyap beat Derek Wong of Singapore in a gruelling three-game match to become the first male Gold medallist in badminton since 1982.
#9 Kidambi Srikanth breaks into the top 5
Kidambi Srikanth began the year 2014, with his BWF ranking in the 40s. After he upset Lin Dan in the final of the China Open in November, a relentless Srikanth continued his good run, reaching the semi-finals at Hong Kong and Dubai.
His consistency paid off with is BWF ranking jumping to number four, making him only the third Indian player to break into the top five. Prakash Padukone and Pullela Gopichand were the first to achieve the feat, with the former attaining the top ranking and the latter achieving a career-high ranking of four.
Srikanth has had a terrific run in 2015, winning the Swiss Open and following it up with a victory at the India Super Series. Srikanth is currently the highest ranked male Indian badminton player.
#10 Saina\'s ascension to the top
After successfully defending the India Open Grand Prix Gold event in January this year, Saina Nehwal became the first Indian woman to reach the final of the All England Open Badminton Championship. In a tensely fought final, Saina lost to Carolina Marin 16-21, 21-14, 7-21.
Unruffled by the loss, Saina continued her good run, winning the India Open BWF Super Series beating RatchanokItanonof Thailand in the final. Her win propelled her to the top of the BWF Rankings, displacing Li Xuerui of China on April second. Not only did Saina become the first Indian woman shuttler to attain the World Number one ranking, she also became the first non-Chinese player since 2009 to hold the top position.
Unfortunately, her semi-final loss in theMalysiaOpen to Li saw the latter wrest back the top ranking from the Indian.
