When Parupalli Kashyap lost in the semifinals of the Indonesia Open Super series against Kento Momota of Japan, many critics pointed out that his performance was not consistent at the International level. His coach, Pullela Gopichand who was in Vadodara, Gujarat in an event of Sports Authority of Gujarat addressed this issue by saying that Kashyap needed time to be consistent.
Kashyap, having defeated World no-1 Chen Long in the quarterfinals, lost to Kento Momota, the No-8th seeded Japanese who eventually went on to win the title.
Pullela Gopichand, the first person to win both the Arjuna & Dronacharya award said, “when I started coaching, there was a time they said that Indian men & women have done well. Then there came a point when Saina Nehwal was there & then we had PV Sindhu and suddenly there was the question that why only Indian women seemed to be coming up and why not Indian men.”
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“Today we see somebody like Srikanth, Kashyap & Prannoy, all of them are doing well. It was fantastic to see Kashyap win against Chen Long. I think he just needs some more time to be consistent.”
On the doubles performances he said-“In the last few years, we have seen women’s & men’s badminton come up and if you look at the last few rounds, we have had some good performances from Jwala Gutta & Ashwini Ponnappa, but if you look at B. Sumeeth Reddy & Manu Attri, they have done well to beat the world top ten players in Asian Games and then in the World Championship”, he added.
Pullela Gopichand is proposed to be the Coach of Academy in Vadodara and the Sports Authority of Gujarat is trying to rope in the Indonesian coach for the academy as well.
