PV Sindhu
World Champion PV Sindhu is in London to prepare for next year's Asia leg of the Badminton World Federation's calendar as "her practice was not happening properly" at the ongoing national camp in Hyderabad, her father PV Ramana has said.
The Olympic silver-medallist has been in London for the last 10 days and posted a picture with sports nutritionist Rebecca Randell of the Gatorade Sports Science Institute (GSSI), her training base, on her social media page on Monday.
"She has been in London for the last 10 days. We can't stay with her for two months, so she went alone," Ramana, who has often spoken on behalf of the shuttler told PTI, refuting reports that she left because of an unspecified dispute in the family.
Owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, the BWF has been forced to move the World Tour Finals (Jan 27-31) and the two Asia opens (Jan 12-17 and Jan 19-24) to Bangkok in January next year.
Ramana said that the celebrated shuttler was not happy with her training at the national camp. "Her practice was not happening properly here. After the 2018 Asian Games, Gopi (chief coach Pullela Gopichand) didn't take interest in her training. He didn't provide a proper practice partner to train with her.
"She was not having enough quality practice and was fed up with the treatment," he claimed.
When contacted, Gopichand confirmed that Sindhu had informed him about her move to London but refused to respond to Ramana's remarks.
"She has gone for that Gatorade training academy, that is the information we have. They have a training institute there. I don't know the exact details or duration of the program," he said.
"I don't want to respond to what her father has to say, if Sindhu says something, I will respond," he added.
Ramana said Sindhu had informed the Badminton Association of India (BAI) regarding her trip to London and had also kept Gopichand in the loop.
"She had sent a letter to BAI last week about her trip, with a copy to Gopi...and since she will be there for at least eight weeks, she will be practicing with England team. So, she requested BAI to put in a word to Badminton England," Ramana said.
Sindhu has been part of the national camp for Olympic hopefuls and was training with her Korean coach Park Tae Sang ever since Kim Ji Hyun resigned last year. She skipped the recently-concluded Denmark Open Super 750 tournament and will next be seen in action at the Asian leg of the adjusted BWF World Tour 2020 in January.
The Hyderabadi will not get a direct entry in the rescheduled World Tour Final as the BWF has decided against handing automatic invitations to current world champions in the season-ending tournament.
