The Hindu : Sport / Badminton : Gopichand optimistic

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Sep 06, 2006

Sport

Sport - Badminton

Gopichand optimistic

Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD: If National badminton coach P. Gopichand's optimism is infectious, the training camp that got underway here on Monday could well be the springboard for some splendid performances from his wards in the World Championships at Madrid from September 18 to 24.

The former All-England champion gauged the form of his wards mostly by their showing in the recent Korean, Hong Kong and Philippines Opens, competitions that he described as tough as they can get.

Positives

"Saina Nehwal has been doing well, beating some top 20 players. Chetan Anand has some good wins too and so is Anup Sridhar's form promising, considering that he took a game off World No. 2 Lee Chong Wei," he said.

Anand Pawar had replicated Sridhar's feat. Shruthi Kurien's win at the SAF Games made him hopeful that the doubles players would produce results too. So was junior Ajay Jayaram's win over World No. 14 Eric Pang, a shot in the arm for the sport in the country.

Never one to overstate things, he said the above accomplishments gave him confidence that the coaching programme he runs, was on the right track.

Of the team's prospects at the Madrid event, he was realistic. While medals were a tall order, he said he would be happy with quarterfinal finishes and anything further would be wonderful. He expected the senior players to convert their good work thus far into even better performances in Spain.

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