PV Sindhu’s support staff (coach, trainer, physio, nutritionist, strategist) has been completely replaced in 2024 from her 2016 team, when she won her first Olympic medal. But Sindhu’s pivoting from Hyderabad to Bengaluru, from Pullela Gopichand to Prakash Padukone – via Park Tae Sang, Vidhi Chaudhary, Hafiz Hashim and Agus Santoso – is in pursuit of the same end goal – making her an aggressive, attacking player once again.
At Bengaluru, the defensive delaying of kill shots till late in the rally is being scrubbed clean. The jump hop-smash has resurfaced and Sindhu’s lunging at the net with more assurance. Padukone has rejigged her drops – helping choose the right moment to play them to end a rally, with the smash as a set-up shot, not the kill. Back in the day, she didn’t need to bother with nuance on the smash and could hit through. Now she bides her time, but never gets defensive, dictating rallies.
Sindhu’s third-game endurance is still pretty wretched. But she nicked a 21-19 middle game against Carolina Marin in Denmark with Md Siyaduttullah in the coaching chair, and in Paris, took the opener 24-22 against Chen Yufei with Agus and Padukone instructing. She lost both matches, but bared vintage fighting claws, closing out these games against top names.
Sindhu didn’t win very much in the lead-up to Rio 2016 either, but opponents feared a 19-19 situation with her. With her wolf-pack backing her, the bite is new. The attacking hark is old.