Badminton: India needs a foreign specialist doubles coach, says Vimal Kumar

Bangalore: Former chief national badminton coach Vimal Kumar has said that doubles is neglected in India and the need of the hour is to hire a top foreign player to coach doubles. “If you want to be a badminton superpower we need to find the balance between doubles and singles.” Kumar told Firstpost at Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy in Bengaluru. “We have one or two good pairs but that is not enough. If a top foreign player takes over the doubles programme with Indians assisting, that would be ideal.” [caption id=“attachment_2286422” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File photo of Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa. AFP[/caption] India’s best known badminton doubles pair of Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa were recently left out off the Sports Ministry’s list of athletes that would receive government funding for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Jwala, who is especially outspoken, questioned the decision: “The players who are already having lot of corporate support are in the list and Ashwini and me (were) not considered. Don’t know what more to be done. Kind of tired, kind of disappointed. And if we speak its called cribbing and if we don’t we will be just left out.” It is not a new complaint for her. She has been railing against the step-motherly treatment for doubles for years. In May 2014, Akhilesh Dasgupta, the Badminton Association President said they had asked for the world federation’s help to pick a specialist doubles coach. “We had discussions with BWF regarding a foreign doubles coach,” Dasgupta told PTI. “We spoke to BWF president and secretary general about it and asked for their help. They said they will get back to us with a few names. We are waiting for their response. There are a number of teams who have good doubles players. So the coach could be from any country - Japan, Denmark or Korea but a Danish could be a real possibility. Let’s see.” But nothing has materialised since then. India last specialist doubles coach was Indonesian Edwin Iriawan, who left in 2013. It was under Iriawan and his predecessor Atik Jauhari, that the Jawala-Ashwini combination had their best results, including winning gold at the 2010 Commonwealth Games. If you compare India’s performance in singles with the paired events, then the latter is clearly struggling. The nation has three men - K Srikanth, P Kashyap and HS Prannoy – ranked and two women - Saina Nehwal (3rd) and PV Sindhu (14th) – ranked in the top 20 respectively. However, there are no pairs in the top 20 of mixed or men’s doubles and only Jwala-Ashwini (17th) feature in the top 20 of the women’s doubles. Current national coach P Gopichand has also admitted that doubles needs more help but claimed not to have the freedom to do so. “In our country, the coach doesn’t have the freedom like foreign coaches, in terms of forming different combinations,” Gopichand said after India was knocked out of the Uber Cup last year. “When it comes to doubles, it requires a lot of grooming. So we need tougher laws, so that once a player is selected for doubles, he or she can only play doubles and similarly for singles, that sort of authority we don’t have in India.” Still, according to Kumar, who is currently coaching India’s top singles player, Saina Nehwal, these issues should not deter young players from specializing in doubles. “You cannot compare – singles players will always have the priority,” Kumar said. “Fame and money may play on the mind of players but then look at tennis – doubles players have enough of all that. Jwala-Ashwini also have a name. All these will come but these are not a deterrent. Or at least, should not be.” But he also admitted that there is a lack of role models in doubles to inspire the next generation and that the Badminton Association of India (BAI) needed to be more proactive. “Not too many players come up to me and tell me they want to become doubles stars. Specialised attention is needed for doubles players and the administration should be more proactive to fix this. We know it’s a problem high on the agenda but we must act,” he said.