HS Prannoy happy to be back in action, says Thomas Cup has given him clarity on what to focus on while training

Chengdu: Happy to be able to compete at the highest level after struggling with health issues for the last four months, Indian shuttler HS Prannoy on Thursday said the Thomas Cup campaign gave him an idea on the areas he needs to work on ahead of the upcoming events.

The 31-year-old from Kerala, who will be representing India at the Paris Olympics, has been suffering from a stomach issue, which was similar to acid reflux that he suffered in 2018-2019. It caused nausea and vomiting and also caused him to lose four kilograms in the last couple of months.

At the Thomas Cup, Prannoy defeated Indonesia’s Anthony Ginting on Wednesday and also registered a win against England’s Harry Huang earlier in the tournament. He played a close match against world no. 2 Shi Yu Qi of China on Thursday.

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“I fought hard and I think that’s what matters and for me, that’s what mattered straight from the first day.

“The idea was to not let go of things easily and to fight until the last point,” Prannoy said after losing 21-15 11-21 14-21 to Shi Yu Qi as India went down 1-3 to China to end their campaign at the quarterfinal stage.

“Probably I did that but I would say a lot of learning from this match as well to know where the top players are playing and what are the areas they’re good at.

“Probably I was not able to play these kind of matches the last four months. So to get this kind of matches is a bonus right now and to kind of know what to focus on in training.'

Talking about his opponent, Prannoy said: “Obviously, he is in some good nick at the moment, given his success on the tour.

“Someone like Shi Yu Qi can find lines from any corner of the court, you have to defend well. I think I did that for the most part of the match, the entire match I think. You have to give it to him, no matter what the situation is…

“From an overall game perspective, I think the important thing was to keep up the pace, to make him move around and tire him. I think the third game’s first half was the key over there where I had a little bit more chance to kind of open up the game and play.

“But I was a little bit more nervous lifting because he was hitting well from both the sides so that got in the way so that game didn’t work out.”

Asian Games champions Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty also endured a tough day as they lost 15-21 21-11 12-21 to world no.1 Liang Wei Keng and Wang Chang in the first men’s doubles.

It was their second loss in two days and the Indian pair said it will comeback stronger.

The match was dominated by short and snappy rallies with Liang and Wang mounting a fast attack right from the word go.

“The rallies were quite short. Whenever we played longer rallies, we were scoring points but it was a service receiving game right from the second game and we won that. I think it was more like who’s dominating in the first three shots,” Chirag said.

“We just kept pushing ourselves even though we were not playing to the best of our abilities. But if you want to beat them, you have to play at a much better level than this. We’ll take a lot of learning from this and come back stronger.”

Satwik said the first four shots are extremely important if one has to beat these top pairs and they will need to go back to the drawing board to sort out the issue.

“I feel both games are the same. Whoever keeps on attacking, wins the match. So it’s quite simple. Whoever controls the net, wins the match. In the second game, we controlled the net, and we won,” Satwik said.

“First game they controlled…it was very quick there like in five seconds we lost two points. It was not about rally, in ten minutes, it was 11-4. I wanted to play more, I wanted some rallies but how?

“It happened with the Indonesians as well. They’re quite good in service and receiving, maybe we should go back and talk to our coach and sit down. It’s not about rallies, it’s about the first four shots. We have to work more.

“When we did that well, we won many tournaments and I think it’s a good tournament for us, not to doubt ourselves, but a little bit lack of confidence. We go back and we have time for the next tournament,” Satwik added.