Basel World Championships: Thumb rule applies

Sai Praneeth is beginning to merge his deceptive shot-making with the required discipline & fitness.

B Sai Praneeth, India’s latest Arjuna awardee in badminton, has the mythical Eklavya’s non-existent thumb when he plays his backhand.

That is to say that when he switches, in a split-second, his racquet grip from forehand to backhand, the digit that lends that particular stroke power — the thumb — hardly comes into play. To Canadian Jason Anthony Ho-Shue’s naked eye, the tweak in the grip with the thumb jutting out when Sai smacked his backhand would’ve been utterly absent.

Clearing the first round at the Basel World Championships on Monday with more than a few hiccups, the Indian, seeded 16th, won 21-17, 21-16 foxing his opponent repeatedly. There were scary lapses of focus alright, but the 39 minutes were also a feast of strokes and deceptions, including the last point where he had Ho-Shue diving the wrong way after a furious exchange of flat strokes, as the Indian smashed straight.

But more on that “no-thumb”, as close friend and academy-mate Gurusaidutt calls it. The two belong to Gopichand’s first batch of trainees, along with Parupalli Kashyap and Saina Nehwal. Sai would in fact, pack breakfast and lunch tiffins at 3.30 am in the morning, setting off from Hyderabad’s Adarsh Nagar to go to Gachibowli in their early teens. Guru recalls Sai Praneeth’s freakish talent from even back then.

“He was just very strokey always and his wrist was very strong,” Guru says. So strong that he could play the backhand without changing the grip on his racquet. “It looked just like the normal grip on the forehand. There was no thumb! We would wonder where he gets the power from. But he was always talented and smooth and tricky always,” Guru adds.

Against Ho-Shue, Sai led 17-7 in the opener, before allowing a 8-point rally from his opponent and holding off to pocket the first game. In the second, he pressed on the pedal at 11-10 to not let things dawdle any further.

Broad range of strokes

It was in this phase that Sai would unveil his broad range of strokes, not allowing his unfancied opponent a toe in the door thereafter. The 26-year-old, who will pick the Arjuna later this month, will hope the announcement of what he reckoned was belated recognition, gives him a fresh lease of confidence.

It’s been a sobering acceptance over a decade of the fact that the boy bustling with talent as India’s top junior had to adjust to a new normal where Kidambi Srikanth and HS Prannoy had nosed well ahead of him. Sai was accustomed to medalling since the u-13s and then the World Juniors even as his precocious style filled with a candy store of strokes gave him big wins against Taufik Hidayat and Lee Chong Wei.

He’d crib about training for fitness, but end up doing what was needed eventually. “It’s in the last three years that he started focusing diligently on fitness over and above what was told to him,” Guru recalls.

Winning the Singapore Super Series would strengthen his resolve. “Once you near the Top 20, you get that maturity. In fitness, you know how much to push yourself to get the balance between training consistently and staying injury-free,” he adds.

An ankle injury prior to 2017 with shooting pain in the leg would drive Sai to tears. But the boy who was pushed by his maternal grandfather – who funded, nurtured and carted him around the country for junior meets – was taking his time. The artistic game, that could keep opponents guessing with net tricks, needed the solidity that can only come with fitness. He’d keep his even temper though even as the start-stop career needed recalibration.

His grandpa would keep stressing that he ought to listen to his coach and work on his deficiencies and even when the Arjuna didn’t show up after a good season, he’d go about his gigs. “Now we’re flying in the sky after the Arjuna. Two years ago, he must’ve been disappointed but wasn’t allowed to crib,” says the grandfather.

Opponents have always tried to hit back, tire him out – a position from where he crumbles. All of Guru, Kashyap, Srikanth and Prannoy play gully cricket in their downtime, and Sad is notorious for getting partners run out like a lazy Inzamam-ul-Haq. This week, exhausting Sai will again be a ploy used generously. But on a good day, rivals will be on their toes, wary of strokes played seamlessly from tough positions even as Sai tries to play steady. The flick grip on the backhand with the hidden thumb will stay busy.

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