After making it to semis of World Tour Finals, India’s Sameer Verma says being injury-free is key to success
Sameer Verma has had his most fruitful year since becoming a professional badminton player, winning three tournaments and making an unexpected semifinal entry into the season-ending BWF World Tour Finals last week.
Yet, the 24-year-old is more satisfied about something else.
“I have remained injury-free this year, that is the biggest thing,” the world No. 12 Verma said.
Injuries have been a constant companion of Verma, pulling him down each time his promising career looked set to finally take off.
Product of the Gopichand Badminton Academy in Hyderabad, born in Dhar (Madhya Pradesh), Verma burst into the scene by breaking into the top-100 of the singles world rankings for the first time in 2012. The joy, though, remain short-lived as for the major part of the next year-and-a-half, Verma was busy battling niggles.
His next major headline-grabbing moment came in November 2016, when he stormed into the Hong Kong Open Superseries final in a giant-killing run. If that was supposed to be his career-transforming tournament, his body had other plans, a shoulder issue keeping him out of action for a few months the following year.
Thus, in a year where he has tasted more success than ever before, it is understandable that Verma finds more solace in his body holding up than results showing up.
“You can say that this year was a breakthrough year for me, but that’s because I have managed to remain fit,” Verma said here as he gears up to participate in the Premier Badminton League for Mumbai Rockets.
“That’s the one thing I’ve learnt this year: if I take care of my body, performances will fall into place automatically. The last few years before this, I was down with injuries, making a comeback for a tournament, and then getting injured again. That was the most difficult part,” he added.
In a stop-start career, grappling with persistent injury issues can be a challenge, and for Verma, trying to figure out the cause of a fresh injury that surfaced every time involved more complexity.
“When you’re injured, the first thing you have to do is figure out what led to the injury: where did the pain come from, what did I do wrong in training, or did I not recover properly? Questions like these crop up. You go into a shell, a negative mindset – that I was playing so well and I got injured,” he said.
A major source of positivity through these negative phases Verma went through was his elder brother Sourabh, a top-level badminton player himself who is currently ranked world No. 54 and stays with his younger sibling in the Gopichand academy.
“My main support system is Sourabh,” Sameer said. “We stay together even in the academy, so that is a big help for me, that your elder brother is there for you in every moment of your career.”
Realising that the problem had been too consistent to be ignored, Verma knew something had to change. He decided to plan his tournaments better, and not shy away from playing lower-level tournaments – the Super 100s and 300s, and the like – at the expense of some bigger ones.
“I’ve planned tournaments better this year. Even if I felt one per cent that my body wasn’t right, then I dropped out of that tournament. For that little time, I would feel disappointed that I have to pull out. But now I realise the benefits of it,” he said.
The tinkering paid rich dividends, with Verma winning the Swiss Open (Super 300), Hyderabad Open (Super 100) and Syed Modi International (Super 300).
He needed to lift the Syed Modi International trophy to be able to qualify for badminton’s new-look World Tour Finals, a year-ending event which had space for only the top eight most consistent players across all five disciplines through the year.
Verma was the only Indian to make the cut there apart from PV Sindhu, who won the title.
“I wasn’t even expecting to go to the Tour Finals,” Verma said.
“At the Syed Modi, everyone was telling me, ‘You have to win this (to qualify)’. And I was like, I know but it’s not easy. I had to remove all those burder of expectations from my mind,” he added.
It’s with that clear and care-free mind that Verma flew to Guangzhou, and it showed.
He was thrashed by top-ranked Kento Momota in the opening group encounter, but beat world No. 9 Tommy Sugiarto and No. 15 Kantaphon Wangcharoen in the next two matches to sneak into the knockouts.
In the semifinals, Verma had a match point against second-ranked Chinese Shi Yuqi before the reigning All England champion brought all his experience into play to get out of the hole the Indian had managed to put him in.
“I played all the matches with a nothing-to-lose attitude. I wasn’t focussing on results. Bindaas court mein jao aur khelo, jo hoga dekha jayega (enter the court and play without any fear, whatever happens will happen).
“I play my best with that attitude. Whenever I take pressure, I am not able to perform. But mein jab bhi bindaas court mein jaata hu (whenever I enter the court without any fear), then I do well,” Verma said.
SAMEER’S FRUITFUL 2018
Swiss Open (February): Winner
Hyderabad Open (September): Winner
Syed Modi International (November): Winner
World Tour Finals (December): Semifinalist
SAMEER AT WORLD TOUR FINALS
GROUP STAGE
Rd 1: lost to world No. 1 Kento Momota 18-21 6-21
Rd 2: beat world No. 9 Tommy Sugiarto 21-16 21-7
Rd 3: beat world No. 15 Kantaphon Wangcharoen 21-9 21-18
KNOCKOUTS
SF: lost to world No. 2 Shi Yuqi 21-12 20-22 17-21
No. 12 Sameer Verma’s current world ranking, after having began the year in the 30th position
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 "Sameer Verma")
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