Three years after arguably the biggest split in Indian badminton, Saina Nehwal is back with coach Pullela Gopichand. Tweeting her decision to move back 'home' and train in Hyderabad, Saina said on Monday that she had been considering the idea for a while and decided to go ahead with it following a discussion with Gopichand, who is also the chief national coach.
For a while I've been thinking about moving my training base back to the Gopichand academy and I had a discussion about this with Gopi sir
- Saina Nehwal (@NSaina) 4 September 2017
and I am really thankful to him for agreeing to help me again . At this stage in my career I think he can help me achieve my goals .
- Saina Nehwal (@NSaina) 4 September 2017
"I'm really thankful to him for agreeing to help me again. At this stage in my career I think he can help me achieve my goals," read another of her tweets. Working with Indonesian Mulyo Handoyo, who formerly coached Taufik Hidayat to an Olympic gold and has turned around the games and fitness of the Indian singles players, is learnt be a primary push for the decision.
"After our return from the World Championships, Saina had sought my opinion on her working with Mulyo," says Vimal Kumar, under whom Saina trained for the last three years, "I encouraged her to give it a shot. Players have a short span at the top and will always look for ways to get better. Both Saina and Sindhu are special girls and if they can go higher and get better we should offer them those opportunities."
In 2014, Saina moved to Bengaluru to train at the Prakash Padukone Academy under Vimal, with whom she touched creditable heights, including attaining the World No. 1 ranking and two World Championship medals before being laid low by injury ahead of the Rio Olympics last year.
Since moving out of Hyderabad, Saina and Gopichand have maintained a distance from each other and almost never have been seen in the same frame. The recent World Championships in Glasgow, where Saina finished with bronze, appear to have acted as a thaw. At the end of PV Sindhu's World Championship final, which lasted 110 minutes, she walked up to Gopichand and said, "Mera petrol khatam ho gaya match dekhte dekhte (I ran out of energy just watching that match)."
Coach and former pupil laughed over it and later posed for pictures together. Less than a week since images of the heartwarming reunion, Saina is back where she began her inspiring journey to become India's pin-up badminton star.
Saina's primary foe since her knee injury and subsequent surgery in August 2016 has been her fitness. Her move to Hyderabad is timed to address that under Mulyo, who top Indian singles players including Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth credit for altering training patterns in a way that has helped them build endurance and last long matches.
When asked about the 73-shot rally in the second game at the World Championship final and what saw her through the sapping battle of attrition, Sindhu was quick to single out singles coach Mulyo, a steady presence beside Gopichand on the court sidelines through the tournament, for lavish praise. "He has helped me immensely in training for the games and fitness," Sindhu said.
By the end of the third game against eventual gold medalist Nozomi Okuhara at the World Championship semi-finals, both ideas and limbs abandoned Saina with a reduced staying power crippling her against a tireless retriever. It's what eventually made the difference between a bronze and a final appearance.
"Saina's World Championships medals in a way show that even without Gopi she can do well. She has nothing really left to prove. She knows how to win. She just needs the belief," says nine-time national champion Aparna Popat, "She has been staying away from home for a while now; so I guess it's also about convenience. Also as a player, when you know a coach has produced a legendary player - someone like Taufik in this case - what he says becomes sacrosanct. You start believing. This is not to say that Mulyo hasn't had great results here, it's just that he has that much more impact".
Above everything else, what makes the Saina-Gopi bond click according to former chief national coach SM is their temperamental similarities. With both coach and pupil having trained under him in the past, it's a combination, he feels, that was always meant to work.
"Both Gopi and Saina were never slackers on court. They were willing to continue training after everyone else had dropped to their knees panting. I remember Gopi lying in bed after his left knee surgery in 1994. After his family had left the room, he asked me 'everyone is writing me off, saying my career is over, what do you think Sir?' I told him that he would come back stronger and he replied with a smile that he felt the same too."
Gopi went on to win the All England title in 2001.
"When I met Saina just before the World Championships this year, I told her that I expect her to put the injury behind and win big. There was no doubt in her voice or fear in her eyes. It reminded me of Gopi's conviction. They both have immense grit and that's what holds them together."
Conditions at the academy though are vastly different now from what they were when Saina moved out in 2014. Then, she was the biggest name under the roof, but today there's Olympic silver medalist and world No 4 Sindhu apart from a promising brood of men's singles players, who've been beating the big names and bringing home a steady trickle of Superseries titles, making focused, undivided attention on her difficult.
At 27, both the Asian and Commonwealth Games scheduled for next year are among Saina's major goals. "Between then and now, Sindhu has achieved a lot. Now, Saina is more settled than threatened," says Aparna, "You carry these emotions with you for a couple of years and somewhere down the line you grow up and learn to let go and patch up. They always shared a great relationship and no matter what anybody says, she's always going to be special for Gopi."