Jumping 20 spots for an Olympic berth

Hyderabad’s B. Sumeeth Reddy and his partner Manu Attri are the first Indian men’s doubles badminton pair to qualify for the Olympics. But a year ago, Sumeeth didn’t expect that they would qualify, as their doubles ranking was above 40. But the two fought their way up and the current World No. 20 are happy to have qualified.

Sumeeth started playing badminton when he was 10, around the time when Pullela Gopichand won the All England Open Badminton Championship in 2001. “My dad was an athletic coach and wanted me to play some sport as well. Since Gopichand sir had just won the All England Open Badminton Championship, my dad thought that as a sport, badminton would really pick up and that’s why he chose it for me,” says the 24-year-old.

Sumeeth trained under Govardhan Reddy at Lal Bahadur Stadium in Hyderabad for the first three years. He played his first International match when he was 16. “In Under-19, my national ranking was No. 1 for two years. In singles, in 2010, I was ranked fifth In India.”

But due to injuries, he had to move to doubles. “In 2011, I had a back injury. Doctors said they didn’t know what the actual problem was, which was triggering the pain. With Gopichand sir’s suggestion, I later shifted to doubles. He said ‘If it is tough to cover the whole court why don’t you try playing doubles’. So in 2012, I started playing doubles, and in five months I played my first doubles tournament partnering Manu and we won the match. Now, I don’t have much pain. I spend two hours a day doing exercises for strengthening my back. But it was tough then.”

Sumeeth says he owes a lot to Gopi. “Gopichand sir is my idol. Whatever he said about me, it all came true. I took up badminton because of him, took up doubles because of him and even for Olympics, he kept pushing us and believed that we had it in us to qualify,” he says adding, “I didn’t have much hope for the Olympics selection because our world ranking was over 40 a year ago. But Gopi sir pushed us and gave us hope that we could do it. Even off court he used to call us to have a chat and motivate us. He played a very key role in us getting selected. I am not sure about Manu but I thought jumping 20 ranks was very tough for us back then.”

The duo practises for around eight hours every day. “The whole campus has been feeding us with some great tips. The next three months will be really crucial. We are trying to give our best to get a medal for our country. Before Olympics, we have three tournaments but focus is more on training. We will be playing the matches but we won’t compromise on our Olympics training. Even our doubles coach Tan Kim Her has been helping us a lot. For now, we have left it on our coach. He is strengthening our basics. In the last one-and-a-half months, we will work more on our techniques,” adds Sumeeth, who also works as an inspector with the Income Tax Department.