It seems senseless for the World Badminton Federation’s (BWF) to rush to schedule as many as 22 grade 1 and 2 tournaments in just over four months from August 11, says HS Prannoy. “I am not worried, but it is kind of senseless,” he says, preparing to arrest his slide from being a top 10 player two years ago to World No. 28 now.
“It is an indirect way of BWF putting pressure on the players and not leaving them with any option. It is important to understand from the world’s point of how these things are actually managed, and that sport is always a second aspect to life and health,” he says from his base in Thiruvananthapuram where he has been training for a week now in the Toss Academy.
“Once the schedule is out, players have the pressure to go out and play because their rankings are at stake. Besides, contracts and sponsorships are all dependent on that. Few will say they will not take part in these events. No player will want to sit at home thinking he or she will get infected by Corona. It is a tough decision that players will have to make on when and where to travel,” he says.
Yet, deep down, it would appear that Prannoy and other players are hoping that the travel regulations for each country will bring lead to postponements and cancellations of some tournaments.
“We first need to understand the travel regulations for each country. BWF will have to make sure that everything is in place. Travelling is very unsafe right at the moment. But when the tournaments start, everyone’s mentality will have to change. Everybody will ‘run’ to the tournaments because their rankings are at stake,” the 27-year-old says.
Speaking of his own return to court last week, he says it was easier on the body than when he had to come back from injury and rehab earlier in his career. “For other athletes, who have been less injury prone than me, this could be a mental challenge for they are used to being always out there, playing tournaments. They may not be able to find the motivation to train,” he says.
He says he did not let the nation-wide lockdown affect his composure because of his experience of being away from the game. “Over the last five or six years, I have faced so many injuries due to which I have had to spend months away from the game. I have come back after big breaks (from competition) in my career. So, this will not really be hard,” he says.
“The advantage now is that I have been able to train well. I am able to find time to try new things on the training aspects. Yet, there were times in the past couple of months when one didn’t want to train because one didn’t know when things would be normal and when one would play tournaments,” Prannoy says.
“All athletes will have to find the right reasons to get motivated to play. The first thing to do is accept the situation – it is unavoidable – and find solutions to be motivated to train hard. One of things we can attempt is to think of this as an off-season and try some new things without having the fear of losing something that is already part of your armoury,” he says.
“To be honest, one of the things that was important was to stop thinking about the game itself when I was injured and unable to train. It would have caused a lot of expectations and negative thoughts to occupy the mind, so I did things that I enjoyed doing but would not when playing on a regular basis,” he says.
It will have been different now since he has had time to reflect on aspects of his game that led to his slipping in the world rankings and being only fifth on the list of Indians behind Sai Praneeth, Kidambi Srikanth, Parupalli Kashyap and Lakshya Sen. Prannoy’s fans will be hoping that he can not only halt the slide but also rise higher sooner than later.
This article first appeared in Mail Today on May 27, 2020
