Making a champion of a slacker: The man who discovered Kidambi Srikanth

“My wife and I used to have fights about badminton. My son used to also play badminton at the Sports Authority of Andhra Pradesh and she would always wonder why I couldn’t make a player out of him,” says Sudhakar Reddy, the man who first spotted the talent of Kidambi Srikanth. But to Reddy, all the 30-40 odd boys and girls he had scouted from all over Andhra Pradesh were like his children. He could not bring himself to discriminate between his son and the others. And by virtue of his own experience, he knew that there are some walls you simply can’t climb without talent. That is the honest truth. Still, when he first recruited Srikanth and his brother Nandagopal for the academy on October 7, 2001, he had his doubts. Nandagopal, the elder of the two, was more intense. He would turn up for all the practices, exercise and do all the groundwork as instructed. Srikanth, on the other hand, would look for ways to skip all that. “If the morning practice would begin at 7, he would turn up at 8, after we had finished the warm-up and exercising,” said Reddy. “This is not to say that he wouldn’t give it his all on the court. He would. But basically, he never wanted to push more than required. He was poor about fitness and poor about eating. [caption id=“attachment_1812735” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Kidambi Srikanth recently beat the legendary Lin Dan to win the China Open. Reuters[/caption] “He would just not eat normally. And then again, he didn’t eat meat because he was from the Brahmin community. So getting the right diet wasn’t easy either.” Srikanth was 8 and a half years old when he first came to the academy. He took part in the under-10 and under-13 All India tournaments and was even picked to represent India at the U-16 level – in doubles though. “He had very good strokes and technically was very good. He could play a good clip too. But his bane was his laziness.” In those days, Srikanth would play singles too but he was so much better at doubles. Conversely, his brother was better at singles than doubles. And now, Srikanth plays singles and his brother has shifted to doubles. The change came after he moved to the Gopichand Academy in 2010. But even that change was not without its fair share of drama. The first player from the Kidambi family to make it to the Academy was not Srikanth. It was his elder brother Nanadakumar who got the first nod. “That led to a strange six months for Srikanth. Once his brother went to the Gopichand Academy, he just disappeared. He stopped coming to the Sports Authority Academy for practice and just sat at home. The few times he would turn up, he lost to juniors – players he was beating easily in the past. “Srikanth’s father needed to rustle up some money to send both his sons to the academy. They needed around Rs 25,000, some bargaining ensued and it was six months before Srikanth could go to the academy too. If it had taken any longer, who know what would have happened.” It was around this time that he lost to Samir Verma at the Junior Nationals. He gave Samir a tough fight in the first game losing 22-20. But in the second game, it was almost as if he didn’t want to be there. He lost the second game 21-6. After the game, Reddy was furious and gave him a shouting, ‘Do you want stop playing? Is this how you want to play?’ Srikanth could only mutter ‘No, sir.’ Reddy, who is now 52, was the state champion of Andra Pradesh. At that point, P Gopichand had just become the under-14 champion. He could see that Srikanth needed a push in the right direction – it was a crucial period for him. “Srikanth was a polite kid. Very friendly… not like his brother Nandagopal, who was an arrogant fellow. Srikanth was not headstrong, he would listen to everything except when we told him to exercise. That was something we couldn’t manage.” But the move to the Gopichand academy helped. It got some discipline into his life. He started exercising, he started eating and he even started eating meat. There were times when he would play singles as if he was playing doubles – smashing all the time, attacking all the time with no pause. But Gopichand managed to change his game slowly and give it direction. The Thailand Super Series win in 2013 came out of the blue – he was not even the national champion then. The national singles title followed. And then last week, he beat the reigning world and Olympic champion to clinch the China Open title. “The victory over Lin Dan was incredible. It made me so proud. It took me back to the time when I first spotted him. It took me back to the fights with my wife, to the times I had to nag him and somehow, it made me realise just why I perhaps have the best job in the world.” Srikanth is now playing in the Hong Kong Open and has won in the first round. He is gradually getting used to being known as the best Indian male player around and each time he has a lazy thought – the vision of Reddy shouting at him is enough to get him back on track. There are some things you don’t forget, no matter what.