As we know Pullela Gopichand is the main pillar behind the success story of Indian badminton and his students’ cum Olympic medalists Saina Nehwal and PV Sindhu. But, the recent Saina’s split with Gopichand has become the talk of the town among sports freaks. Saina Nehwal has recently moved to Prakash Padukone Academy in Bangalore, leaving many unanswered questions among fans.
Dreams of a Billion: India and the Olympic Games – This book authored by Boria Majumdar and Nalin Mehta, mentioned a few important documentation on the issue. Saina Nehwal’s husband and badminton player, Parupalli Kashyap revealed that Saina and Gopi had a very complicated bonding. ‘Saina felt that Gopi sir was hers and only hers. All of a sudden, Gopichand had a lot of players to handle and he had to concentrate on others. PV Sindhu was one among them,’ he stated.
He also said that ‘I tried to control the negativity but I was helpless’. It was disclosed that Saina had always taken Gopichand’s discipline as offensive. His strict training made her feel humiliated. During World Championship 2014 in Denmark, Sindhu won Bronze and Saina faced a debacle. Kashyap said that Nehwal was ‘shattered’. In the end, Saina did not want to wait in spite of Gopichand promising to talk to her about the ongoing situation.
She left the academy and joined Prakash Padukone academy in Bangalore. She is currently training with Vimal Kumar. Gopichand quoted that ‘It was as if something very dear was being taken away from me. Earlier, I had literally begged her not to go. But by then she had been influenced by others and had already made up her mind. While I did not want to hold her back and stall her progress, I knew this was something that wasn’t beneficial for either of us. Yes, I indeed had other players to look after and Sindhu had made serious progress in the two years between 2012 and 2014.
Gopi added that his intention was never to neglect Saina Nehwal and maybe he failed to convey the same to her. Gopi expressed his concern that Prakash Padukone and Vimal Kumar encouraged her to leave Hyderabad instead of pacifying her mind.
