Republic Day 2018 | Sindhu is to badminton, what Kohli is to cricket

Ten-year-old Raksha Kandasamy often ends up facing shuttlers who are taller than her in the sub-junior state and all-India ranking tournaments. But that doesn’t faze her. She watches a lot of videos of PV Sindhu’s matches and picks up how she plays badminton using her height, particularly her jump smashes, to keep the opponents at bay.

Raksha is just one of the aspiring badminton players in the country for whom the 22-year-old Sindhu is a role model. Such has been the influence of the Hyderabad ace shuttler, particularly in the last two years that even young boys take up to badminton only because of Sindhu and her achievements at such a young age.

While Indian badminton owes a lot to Sindhu’s senior by five years, Saina Nehwal and her accomplishments for where it is today, particularly in the women’s category, the current Olympic silver medallist has taken it to an altogether new level. Saina may have won more super-series titles than Sindhu, but it is the tall current world No. 3 (as on January 18), who has attracted the masses to the sport, particularly in the last year and a half since her Rio 2016 silver medal. So much so that badminton is growing in popularity and gives the undisputed number one sport in the country, cricket, a run for its money.

Raksha’s mother Sandhya dedicates a majority of her time taking her daughter to badminton coaching in Navi Mumbai and also to tournaments in and outside the city and state. She thinks in perspective, when she said, “Saina is to badminton what Sachin Tendulkar is to cricket. Likewise, Sindhu is to badminton what Virat Kohli is to cricket.”

Such has been the impact Sindhu has created on the game that while once upon a time, the nation was hooked  to cricket matches on TV dismissing other sports, people have begun switching channels to badminton to watch Sindhu in action even when the Indian cricketers are involved on the field simultaneously.

Sindhu is certainly a big draw. Not just on the badminton court but also off it, thanks to her rise in stature after becoming the only Indian woman to win an Olympic silver medal. Her net worth has gone up by a humongous 1,800 per cent in the last year or so and that she is the undisputed number one richest sportswoman in the country, and third sportsperson, behind cricketers Virat Kohli and Mahendra Singh Dhoni in terms of her rate per day for endorsements.

Tuhin Mishra, group managing director of Baseline Ventures that handles Sindhu’s endorsements besides other star sportspersons in India, said, “Yonex (sports equipment) uses her pictures in the whole of China. We are doing global deals with her. They are not just India specific. For example, Gatorade has done a global deal with her, and the other brand ambassadors of this energy drink are Lionel Messi and Usain Bolt.”

For someone who has made the whole of India sit up and take notice of like no other sportswoman ever, Sindhu is the typical ‘girl next door’. It is her determination to excel and not rest on her laurels, her humbleness, grit, never-say-die and hard work that has made the unassuming shuttler role model among the youth. 

She is only 22. With youth on her side, needless to say her stock can only go higher as she dives, smashes, volleys her way to greater laurels. She is expected to better her World record and Olympic medals, not to mention her quest to emulate Saina and become world number one.

Former Olympian and renowned coach, U Vimal Kumar said that the Rio Olympics silver medal “has changed a lot of things for her in terms of getting sponsors,” she has a lot of years ahead of her on the badminton court. “She was a good prospect before Rio 2016 but that medal has lifted her profile. The nation’s ‘sport light’ is on her. She has the advantage of competing against the best in the circuit. But she has a lot to achieve like golds at Olympics, World Championships, Asiad and All England. She has better chances of winning them than any other Indian currently.”