A Tug Of War

Anup Sridhar's exemplary show at the Badminton World Championship and Arvind Bhat's successful comeback after injury were the highlights in a year which saw a feud between top shuttlers and the Federation coming out in the open.

Touted as a player with huge potential, Sridhar finally came into his own and created a sensation by reaching the quarterfinals of the premier event slaying formidable opponents, including current Olympic Gold Medallist Taufiq Hidayat of Indonesia.

Unseeded Sridhar followed that victory with one over the then World No 16 Muhammad Hafiz Hashim of Malaysia before fighting tooth and nail against World No 1 Chinese Lin Dan.

The Bangalorean's dream run ended with defeat to eventual champion Lin but his effort helped him climb to No 25 in the world rankings.

Sridhar was in awesome touch right from the start of the year and reached the semifinals of the German Open and Asian Badminton Championship in March-April, where he lost to Hidayat.

But Sridhar had to cut short his training in Denmark due to an injury which also forced him to miss a few tournaments at the end of the year.

Another Bangalorean, Arvind Bhat was out of action since August last year after a knee surgery, but made a scintillating comeback to top-flight badminton this year and rose to become the second highest Indian in international rankings.

Bhat was injured when ranked 39th in the world but the lay-off threw him out of the top hundred. But he returned to reclaim his ground and is now ranked 45th, after Sridhar at number 26.

Bhat clinched the New Caledonia Open, Czech Open, Syrian International and the Jordan International to make a massive jump of 79 places in the rankings.

National champion Chetan Anand, however, slipped to 50th after a not-so-impressive year on the circuit.

Just before the Sudirman Cup, the players were up in arms against the Badminton Federation of India for making the training camps mandatory and disallowing them from participating in Super series events.

The country's top doubles pair of Jwala Gutta and Shruti Kurian, and Anand were the three players who chose to defy BAI's diktat and faced the wrath of the Association.

After the European tour in April, BAI said the players should work on their endurance and did not send the team for Super Series events in Singapore and Indonesia.

The trio asked the Federation to forward their entries for the two important events as otherwise their rankings would suffer which meant they would not get a direct entry in major events and would have to go through the gruelling qualifiers.

But BAI stuck to its stand following which the shuttlers boycotted the Sudirman Cup camp and a dubious selection trial.

The association decided to crack the whip on the trio for not attending the Hyderabad camp and not showing up for trials and axed them from the Sudirman Cup team.

The stand-off was ultimately resolved only after the intervention of the Sports Ministry. 

Promising youngster P Kashyap was given a chance in place of Anand, while Ashwin Ponappa and Nitya Sosale took the place of Jwala Gutta and Shruti Kurian for the Sudirman Cup.

India though managed well in Division 3 of the World Team Championship and defeated Scotland, Finland and New Zealand to top Group B but lost to France in the promotional decider for a higher division.

The roller-coaster year notwithstanding, Jwala and Shruti came up with good results in the latter part of the year to attain a world ranking of 24th. The duo reached the semifinals of the Bitburger Open and clinched the India International Challenge in Guwahati.

Saina Nehwal, who scorched the courts last year and won the Philippines Open, went through a patchy year but managed to hang on to a world ranking of 27.

Anand and Saina reached the finals of the India International Challenge. Anand lost to Wei Feng Chong of Malaysia in a gripping contest while Saina went down to Asian champion Kanako Yonekura.

The showbiz USD 15,000 Indian Open badminton event, featuring a host of international stars and scheduled to take place in Hyderabad from September 4, was postponed after many countries expressed their apprehension in the wake of bomb blasts in the city.

International badminton stars from 15 countries were supposed to participate in the September 4-9 event which also carried Olympic qualification points.