Gopichand was originally scheduled to travel with the team but has pulled out citing reasons that he has to be in Hyderabad at his academy to prepare the senior shuttlers for the upcoming tournaments.
The 15-member Indian badminton players for the World Junior Championships starting on October 25 left for Chiba, Japan, on Monday from Delhi without the chief national coach Pullela Gopichand.
Gopichand was originally scheduled to travel with the team but has pulled out citing reasons that he has to be in Hyderabad at his academy to prepare the senior shuttlers for the upcoming tournaments in China, Hong Kong and Macau, all in November.
Gopichand had told DNA less than 10 days ago that he was not accompanying the Indian team for the Denmark Open, which ended on Sunday with Saina Nehwal emerging triumphant in women’s singles, and the Paris Open beginning on Tuesday as he would be going to Chiba.
However, with India’s best ranked junior players, both world No 3 in junior men’s and women’s, Sameer Verma and PV Sindhu, respectively, pulling out of the World Junior Badminton Championships in the second week of October, Gopichand thought it was best to give his attention to the injured players and also those who will be back in Hyderabad and prepare them for the senior tournaments.
“I would have loved to be in Denmark,” Gopi said on Friday after Saina Nehwal crushed world No 1 Yihan Wang in the semifinal. “But then I have been travelling constantly for the last nine months and will again be travelling more for the next few tournaments.”
Gopi confirmed that he was not going to the World Juniors. “I am not going as a lot of players will be back in Hyderabad and training for the China, Hong Kong and Macau tournaments.”
However, the junior shuttlers benefited from Gopichand’s expertise for a few days during their training camp in Lucknow until Sunday. “Gopi Sir was here for three days and he told us to focus on our games and to make India proud,” said a player shortly before leaving for Japan.
Meanwhile, Dwi Kristiwan of Indonesia and Indians, Surinder Mahajan and Sudhir Singh left with the young shuttlers as coaches and are being accompanied by physiotherapist Yogesh Shetty, said a Badminton Association of India source.
Indian team: (Junior men): Rohit C Yadav, Aditya Joshi, Pratul Joshi, Harsheel Dani, Hema Nagendra Babu, G Gopi Raju, Santosh Ravuri, B Venkatesh; Jr women: Riya Pillai, G Ruthvika Shivani, Rituparna Das, Aarathi Sara Sunil, K Maneesha, J Meghana and Poorvisha S Ram
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