Anup Sridhar knows the importance of the Indian Open but an ankle injury makes him a scepticShuttler Anup Sridhar admits to a Hamletian dilemma when it comes to sporting clichés — to believe or not to believe hinges purely on whether the score-line is in his favour. But he flashes his symmetric grin and politely nods to every line urging him to ‘keep faith’, ‘stay positive’, and ‘never give up’. But the 24-year-old can’t stop chuckling at the futility of those phrases when all the positivity is snuffed out by a rampaging rival. In badminton, optimism can whoosh away in an average match-time of 1 hour 15 minutes. “As clichéd as it sounds,” he begins — a believer on this day since he’s returned to light training after a foot injury and is not in too much pain — “but I’ve learnt over the last year that you need to believe in yourself.” It’s easy, he explains, to keep chanting that in the mind, but difficult to practice when thrown to the smashing-sharks on court. It all fits when you’ve heroically won a marathon-match against former world no. 1, Olympic gold medallist and world champion Taufik Hidayat — as Sridhar famously did at the World Championships, marching into the quarters last year. It falls flat when you go down tamely in the opener of the German Open or the semi-finals of your national tournament. “It was more about the way I lost there, without putting up a fight, that bothered me,” he says, heading into the Indian Open with fingers crossed after his recent injury. India’s highest-ranked player at 24, Sridhar is quite simply fighting a mini-Achilles’ curse. Nursing the plantar facia below the left ankle, Sridhar hasn’t quite pushed hard in training not wanting to risk aggravation. “But qualifying for the Olympics with a good draw, and hence the Asian Championships in another ten days’ time is very crucial. Hyderabad’s a Gold GP and there are a lot of points on offer, which makes it important, but not at the risk of injury,” he says. The nationals have served as a wake-up call, since he hasn’t won the title for the last two years. “It wasn’t the best way to start in 2007, but things picked up as the year went,” he rewinds to a year back. “So I’d call this a good omen even for this year,” he quips. Taking a game off world No 1 Lin Dan at the All England earlier this March followed by victory over No 17 Shoji Sato, before the heel complained and forced him to retire, Sridhar comes into Indian Open on good form, not necessarily peak fitness.“It’s good to know that these top guys are beatable; more importantly figure out how to beat them,” he says. While mentors like Prakash Padukone say there’s been a noticeable change in his attitude on court over the high-flying 2007, new traveling coach Tom John offers Sridhar methods that compliment his training and temperament. “It’s been only about 10-15 working days but I know he has what I need. The focus will be on improving my game physically,” Sridhar says.Sridhar, though, steers clear of the cliché which says rankings do a significant lot to a player’s confidence. “It’s nothing much — not till you are world no 1 or something. But they do put you on the first page of the rankings list on the web-site,” he laughs.
