Neither the 36-year wait for a men’s singles World Championship medal since Prakash Padukone, nor the fact that he had lost in the quarterfinals in 2018, weighed heavily on B Sai Praneeth ahead of the 2019 Basel World’s. He insists, seven years on, that keeping only the next step in mind helped him land a bronze, even as Kidambi Srikanth, Lakshya Sen and HS Prannoy followed in subsequent years. “It’s Jonatan Christie. I had a chance to beat him,” he would tell himself.
2019 will always be remembered for the PV Sindhu gold. But on an adjacent court, a classical strokemaker undaunted by past misses, unaffected even by the significance of its big picture, would track down the elusive medal. “Someone had to start, so I did,” he simply says.
“I don’t remember much about the match details now. Only that I had beaten Christie twice, lost once, knew I could beat him again. But yes, I had to win the first set – when he comes under pressure, he cracks,” Sai recalls.
Saina-Sindhu would consistently win, and he applauded the dominance. For the men, the final step, winning the quarters, proved tough; Parupalli Kashyap (against Chinese Du Pengyu) and Sai himself (against Kento Momota) had fallen short in previous years. “I was never worried about the on-court game. Fitness needed to be good. For all of us of that generation, we knew we could beat anyone, win anything.”
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The confidence for him personally had come from the announcement on Sunday that he had won the Arjuna Award, ahead of the Monday start. “Confidence helps,” he explains. The draw had him play Indonesian Anthony Ginting in pre-quarters and Christie in the last eight.
He’d had a poor start to the year, but with finals at Swiss and semis at Japan, he arrived at 17th in seedings, pushed to 16th when somebody withdrew. “Seedings matter,” he says. “It means no World No 1 in the first round,” he laughs. There were still two Top 10s from pre-quarters onwards. But…Christie…he sensed a chance.
Sai Praneeth is one of India’s most prodigiously talented strokemakers, with a proclivity for trying outrageous shots and deceptions with a straight face. So thick was the group of men’s singles shuttlers back then, under the perennial shadow of Lin Dan, Chong Wei, Chen Long and then Momota, that they had to dig out tough wins, even as Saina-Sindhu ruled the show with their champion stuff.
Sai Praneeth with his World Championship bronze medal. (PTI)
So it was forgotten (except by the Arjuna committee) that Sai Praneeth had secured India’s first SuperSeries-level title at Singapore after decades. “I felt I was the best after Srikanth, but we went to World’s like any other tournament,” he recalls. Just the draw aligned well.
He would start against Canadian Jason Ho-Shue and a shorter match against Korean DK Lee in the second round. “Though I won in straight sets, the rallies were long. It gave me confidence the way I played the rallies. It’s what helped me beat Ginting 21-19 and Christie 22-20 in tight first sets, which were important.”
How did he finish? “I don’t remember. Gopi Sir was sitting and he told me something and I played. Don’t remember what.”
After he secured the medal winning quarters, he remembers stern words from Gopichand. “You are still in the tournament and have to play semis. Don’t talk too much. Divert calls,” he recalls. But Momota was in the form of his life, and after Prannoy, he sent Sai packing.
The medal gets displayed prominently at his home, but he’s reluctant to talk too much about it to the new generation he coaches. “We are very different. They won’t understand. But we were lucky to come up at a time without social media and hungama. The new ones are also very fitness conscious. We were disciplined,” he says.
His medal came the same day as Sindhu defeated Tai Tzu-ying in a tactical masterclass. Was it overshadowed? “Naah, Sindhu was tremendous winning that year. The dominance was in single digits. But women always won. We needed that start, I got one,” he says. “It started with Srikanth’s Thailand Open. Whenever any of us won, others would think, ‘We can do it too.’”
The magic of Sai Praneeth’s medal wasn’t in a memento, but in the momentum it gave men’s singles.
