Satwik-Chirag with Gopi Sir after winning the French Open 2024 (PC: Boria Majumdar)
The Badminton Group Stage Draw for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games took place at the BWF Headquarters on Friday, July 12, 2024. During the event, star shuttlers like H.S. Prannoy, P.V. Sindhu, and Lakshya Sen got to know the opponents they will end up facing. However, the BWF announced that the men’s doubles draw for the Paris 2024 Olympics has been postponed to a later date. In this special episode of Backstage with Boria, RevSportz’s Editor-in-chief, Boria Majumdar, had a brief conversation with Pullela Gopichand, the Chief National Coach for the India national badminton team. Gopichand shared his thoughts on the draws, preparations, and final plans for the games.
Boria: The draw has been announced, what are you sensing after having seen the draw? First thoughts?
Gopichand: I think you said it right, it is a tricky draw. With the Olympics and with the way the draw is, I think you are lucky if you do not draw anybody in the initial rounds. As far as the Men’s Singles are concerned, Lakshya has been a little unlucky with Jonatan Christie there. Having said that, it is better to get Jonatan Christie in the beginning of the draw than the later part of the draw because he is somebody who actually plays well as the tournament progresses. Last All England was fantastic. Post that, Lakshya had managed better results than him. So, I would fancy Lakshya’s chances against Christie, especially because it is in the early rounds.
For Ashwini (Ponnappa) and Tanisha (Crasto), it is going to be a tough one. You have two tough players there, Kim-Kong and Shida-Matsuyama. So, that is going to be a good draw but you need to pull out one solid match. That is how it is, because you get to qualify for the quarters straightaway in the doubles segment. It is like 13 seeds and if you are seeded, then you are at an advantage. Having said that, when I look at Lakshya, Sindhu, Prannoy, Ashwini-Tanisha or Satwik-Chirag, I just see that they all are prospective medal winners.
When you are in that bracket, where you are looking for a medal, then a draw should not be a matter of big concern because you have to beat them anyway. 3 groups (O, K, N) are there which are dummy groups and a person who draws those groups gets a bye. So, 16 groups are actually there, but in reality only 13 groups. So, these 13 plus three dummy groups get in and the three dummy groups actually have byes for the players who they meet.
Boria: So, are you saying that Lakshya needs to defeat Christie to qualify for the Round of 16 and facing Christie early on in the tournament is much better than facing him later on?
Gopichand: Yes, because if you see Christie’s results from last year, he had some fantastic tournaments but actually, he had some very bad results as well. He had a lot of first round losses. He had a very good All England but after that, again his form was not that great. So, I would really fancy Lakshya’s chances there.
Boria: Moving onto Prannoy. Reasonably good group but what are your thoughts?
Gopichand: He is looking far better and every day in the training; he has improved in the last week or so. We could have been in a much worse position and that is how I look at it. Happy to see that but it is the Olympics. But this is a draw that we will take.
Boria: Coming to Satwik-Chirag. Thoughts?
Gopichand: It is kind of strange that they are going to have 5 people in a group. So, it will be good if we avoid that group of five because there, you have to play an extra match. The draw is yet to come out but it will be good to have that one extra match less. But as you said, it is true that they are one of the favourites and I do expect them to progress all the way to the medal. Depending on the conditions, we will know who is a tough or easy opponent, head-to-head stuff will not be considered that much because the conditions matter, how they start off those matters. But there are the Indonesians, Japanese, Koreans, with whom we have to fight well and win. That is going to be important.
Boria: Is it all on track in terms of preparation? Are they ready for Paris?
Gopichand: Yes, they are and last week, we had a tournament that we organised internally for them. Mathias (Boe) is here as well. They are fit and doing well. I hope that we come back with some good results.
Boria: When are you leaving? What is the plan? How are you going to approach the Games now?
Gopichand: We will be reaching the village on the 21st or 22nd. We have Lakshya training in France, Sindhu training in Germany and the rest of the players training here in Hyderabad. We all will reach there on 22nd morning. We are having good training, and now it is just the last week. So, now, it is to focus that there are no such niggles and everyone is pumped up for the event. Some good match preparations have been happening and each of them are having their own team of strength and conditioning guys, coaches, physios, and everyone is definitely geared up for the Olympics.