The final frontier: What PV Sindhu needs to do to win a big tournament

When PV Sindhu lost the marathon final in the 2017 World Championship in Glasgow, chief national coach Pullela Gopichand insisted that there would be many world championships to look forward to and he would only regret that loss if the 23-year-old doesn’t win the title in her entire career.

A year later, with Sindhu winning another World Championship silver and now finishing on the losing end of the Asian Games gold medal match, the debate on whether the multiple-time world championship medallist has a mental block is starting to heat up.

Before we get into that, let’s go through some of the facts about the two major losses within the span of a month. Sindhu’s first final loss came against Carolina Marin, who was playing at a completely different level at the World Championship in China.

The Spaniard swatted aside anyone who came in her way. She lost a game against China’s He Bingjiao but was so confident about winning that she merely raised the tempo and the decibel level of her shrieks as the match progressed to close it out. Against such a dominant opponent, Sindhu’s game plan was to keep the shuttle in play for as long as possible and hope that Marin would make enough mistakes for the Indian to capitalise. But that didn’t happen.

Similarly in the Asian Games, world number one Tai Tzu Ying found her rhythm after the initial setback against Ratchanok Intanon in the team events and she barely broke sweat even against the likes of Nozomi Okuhara and Saina Nehwal en route to the final.

In that context, Sindhu was probably lucky not to run into these two champions before the final. A similar occurrence took place in the 2013 and 2014 World Championship where the draw meant that she ended up playing the eventual champions Intanon and Marin in the semi-finals respectively.

What next?

So the simplest inference to be drawn from these two tournaments is that Sindhu lost to the best player in the competition. And her run to the finals of the world championship and Asian Games needs to be celebrated simply for the way she has figured out a way to better the likes of Okuhara and Akane Yamaguchi, who had beaten her in the two big finals last year.

But the question that now raises its head is a simple one: What does Sindhu need to do to finally start winning the finals?

In 2018 alone, the 23-year-old has lost five finals and in the first three tournaments (Commonwealth Games, India Open and Thailand Open), she was tactically out done by opponents who took the initiative and attacked relentlessly.

Despite the height advantage and the booming jump smash that she possesses, Sindhu (at times) prefers to play the percentage game and can perhaps be guilty of playing passively, a trait she showed in the earlier rounds at the Asian Games too.

But Gopichand and Sindhu have clearly worked on that aspect in the last few months and the aggressive approach she adopted against the Japanese in the world championship and the Asiad have definitely bore fruit.

Those who know Sindhu would tell you that the happy-go-lucky youngster is never spoiling for a fight and Gopichand had to adopt the unconventional method of making her shout her lungs out on the court during training before the Rio Olympics to get her to be more aggressive on and off the court.

While that aggression is being seen more often on the court now, it is the overall tactical approach and acumen that Sindhu would need to now work on if she has to get the better of the likes of Tai Tzu or Marin when they are playing at their best.

Soon after her semi-final loss to Tai Tzu Ying, Nehwal spoke about how Sindhu had the quality of strokes — that she herself lacks — to trouble the world number one and it would ultimately boil down to the execution. And that is where, the 23-year-old once again was found wanting.

Too unidimensional?

Many experts have already pointed out the unidimensional nature of Sindhu’s game that can become a handicap when the opponents start mixing things up.

While Marin (when she is fit) can change the tempo of the match at will, Tai Tzu possesses a repertoire of strokes that can befuddle any opponent. And these are probably the two opponents, Sindhu would have to overcome in her quest to win major international tournaments like the World Championship or the Olympics.

Marin had already made it clear that she would only target such major events in the future while the Taipei shuttler will obviously be targeting the two titles she doesn’t have in her bag so far.

So what exactly does Sindhu need to do to beat them on the highest stage and end this run of silver medals?

To begin with, she will have to be hungrier than in the past. At times, one needs to be obsessed with winning the major titles and stop taking such losses in their stride and moving on.

She will then need to add a lot more variety to her strokes to keep the likes of Tai Tzu and Marin guessing and also work on reading the game situations much better tactically. If working on these areas means that it would affect her chances on the BWF circuit for a short period, then it would be worth taking that risk.

Because in Gopichand’s own words, it is that one big title that history remembers a player.

Sindhu is just 23 and will probably get many more shots at glory with the world championship being held annually except for the Olympic year. But every passing year and every missed opportunity would only add to the pressure. Knowingly or unknowingly the emotional strain will begin to build and the media and experts would not let go of a chance to remind her about those misses ahead of major tournaments.

But even Sindhu knows that one title can change all that. The confidence one can get from standing on the top of that podium can completely change the course of one’s career but more importantly it will definitely put an end to the discussion about the five major final losses in two years and the non-existent mental block.

For now, lets just enjoy the historic silver in the Asian Games and hope that next time Sindhu reaches a major final, she has something new in her armoury and executes her gameplan a lot better.