New Delhi [India], February 25 : Pullela Gopichand, India's Chief badminton coach and a former All England champion, has played a pivotal role in shaping the country's badminton landscape.
In a conversation with ANI, he reflected on his journey from a young aspiring player to a mentor guiding India's top shuttlers.
Gopichand's entry into badminton was purely coincidental. In 1985, as a child growing up in Hyderabad, he was initially drawn to cricket, inspired by India's historic 1983 World Cup triumph. However, a series of broken windowpanes led his mother to explore structured training for him.
"My father worked in a bank and was frequently transferred. When we settled in Hyderabad, everyone around was passionate about cricket. I broke a few window panes in my apartment, which made my mom worry. She took me to the stadium to enroll in cricket, but admissions were full. Then, we tried tennis, but my mother found it too expensive. Years later, she told me that there were too many cars parked outside. So we didn't want you to join...It was expensive sport. Finally, we went to the badminton court, where there were available slots, and that's how I started playing," he said.
Despite an initial lack of direction, Gopichand quickly found his calling in badminton, dedicating himself entirely to the sport.
Like many young athletes, Gopichand had to balance academics with his passion for sports.
"I wasn't very interested in studies, but I had to keep up with them. I studied Maths, Physics, and Chemistry in my 11th and 12th. I even attempted the engineering exam but failed. My parents gave me a year to prove myself in badminton. That year, I won the Junior Nationals in 1991 and played for the country. The biggest breakthrough was when I got a job at Tata Steel at 18--that was the real beginning of my badminton career," he noted.
His daily routine reflected his discipline and hunger to excel.
"My mornings started at 4:30 AM to 5:00 AM. I had to study aloud so my mother could hear from her room. If I did that well, I was allowed to go to the stadium by 5:30 AM. The stadium was two kilometres away, and I either walked or cycled," he said.
"When I won the All England, I went back to school, the teachers remembered me as the person who came last to class and who was the first to run out of class. Because if you went early to the badminton court in the evening, you get five to ten minutes more than everybody could play because everybody would go to school and come by 4:15 PM. If you reach at 3:45 PM, then you get that half an hour more to play. Back in the day, there were only three badminton courts in Lal Badur stadium for the whole city. That's all. So, we were lucky that I stayed close to the stadium and I could go there but if my father was posted somewhere else and he was far from the stadium, I don't think this would have happened," he added.
Gopichand recalled the challenges of training in an era without modern sports science and infrastructure.
" I didn't have fitness trainers and physiotherapists. When I suffered an ACL tear in 1994, followed by surgeries in 1996 and 1998, I had no physiotherapist to guide me through rehabilitation. The only support I had was from Dr. Ashok Rajagopal in Delhi, who performed my surgeries. Recovery was based on intuition, sheer grit, and hard work," he recalled.
Despite these limitations, his love for the sport remained unwavering, largely due to the influence of his coaches.
"My first coach, Hamid Hussain Sir between the years 1985 and 1989, never taught me technique but made me fall in love with badminton. He made me love coming to the stadium and he was phenomenal. He used to call me 'Chua' because I was tiny. So when I'm actually teaching a young kid, I want to be like what he was to me. Then came Arif Sir, a strict disciplinarian who emphasized punctuality. He was like, six o'clock would be like six o'clock and if you come at six one, you're like thrown out. So he taught me discipline. Training under Prakash Padukone in Bangalore was another turning point. If he hadn't won the All England , we wouldn't have even dared to dream of achieving such a feat. Later, I worked with Ganguly Prasad, who was more like a friend, I would pull his leg, he would tell things but we would actually work together as a team and we could crack the top and two Chinese coaches, Wong Xiaomin and Su Yan, who helped shape my game during my training in Germany, these two people really helped me. So I was very fortunate that my experiences today as a coach are primarily from these people whom I own but it's only by chance that all of them fell in place and when I think of it in my journey, I think it's supreme God's grace that I got these people all through my life," he emphasized.
Gopichand credited this diverse coaching experience for shaping his philosophy as a mentor.
Reflecting on the evolution of Indian badminton, Gopichand highlighted the stark contrast between his time and the present.
"In 1994, India didn't even send a badminton team to the Commonwealth Games because we weren't among the top six nations," he said.
Today, under Gopi's mentorship India boasts of two Olympic Medallist and several players who have broken into the top echelon of World Badminton.