Saturday, January 07, 2006

Rising stars impress at press meet

Pallav Deka/ badmintonmania.com


THE setting was ideal — The Media Room. It was indeed a new experience for the players, officials and press involved with badminton in India, the first of its kind where players had a session with the press immediately after the day’s matches.

The most promising junior players of the country – P Kashyap, Saina Nehwal, Anand Pawar and Aditi Mutatkar – made a good impression on the first day of the Open championships. They all showed a lot of confidence and answered in style.

Coming into this chapter of the Senior Nationals with each one of them backed with impressive performances in the domestic tournaments in the year 2005, they were oozing with a lot of confidence on putting up a good show at the Nationals.

Kashyap and Saina, the current Junior National champions, have had a great year so far. They have not only dominated the junior scene but have shocked a few of the seniors. Kashyap was not expected to win the Senior Major Ranking Tournament in Indore but he did it in style – beating Chetan Anand, Thomas Kurian, Janish K and Abhinn Shyam Gupta on the way.

Saina on the other hand made headlines by shocking eight-time Senior National Champion Aparna Popat in the final of the Asian Satellite Championships held at Delhi. She has also had victories over the other top-ranked players of the country including Trupti Murgunde and BR Meenakshi. Mittal Sports Trust has identified her as an international prospect and is supporting her. She believes that with more international exposure and a personal coach she will do well in international events as well. Both Kashyap and Saina come into this tournament with impressive performances at the PSPB Inter-Unit Badminton Championships held at Chennai last fortnight and that makes them strong contenders for the Bangalore nationals.

Aditi Mutatkar’s story is interesting and inspiring in itself. After sustaining a career-threatening injury to her knee she had to undergo an ACL (Anterior Cruciate Ligament) reconstruction. The comeback was not easy. She had to undergo rehabilitation — comprising various strengthening and stretching exercises, while fighting anxiety, depression and boredom from doing routine exercises day in and out. But she did overcome all that and after a few initial hiccups has started to show the talent and potential she possesses. It needs a lot of grit and determination to overcome an injury and perform. She has shown it all and her opponents need to beware of this gritty junior.

The fourth among the talented group is Anand Pawar. An aggressive player by nature he has registered creditable wins over senior players like Nikhil Kanetkar, JBS Vidyadhar and Utsav Mishra. Having shown a lot of promise in the last couple of years he reached the finals of two tournaments last season – the Asian Satellite at Delhi and the JRD Tata Memorial at Jamshedpur, and seems to be brimming with confidence.

He feels that as far as skill, speed, power and stamina is concerned he is on par with the seniors. Being accustomed to the conditions at the KBA and coming from badminton stock (being the son of Uday and Sujata Pawar) he is the player to watch.

All four players feel that the playing conditions and overall conduct of the tournament at this nationals are at par with any international tournament that they have participated. They feel that the ambience is good enough to bring out their best. They are appreciative of the concept of the press-player conference.