The rise and rise of Indian badminton

Thomas Cup show increases its popularity stakesHYDERABAD: India's splendid feat of storming into the Thomas Cup final has stunned many across the world. While the Indian fans are celebrating this monumental occasion, the scale of this victory will be understood only by serious followers of the game. Winning individual titles is different but doing well in team events like Thomas Cup indicates the depth of the Indian squad.

It also tells us how far the sport has come, compared to 15 years ago when there was little following. In the late 90s, Pullela Gopichand's mother Subbaravamma used to call newspaper offices and television channels to give the scores of her son's matches. Things did not change much even after Gopichand's triumph at the All England Championships in 2001, but once he took over as India's chief coach, there was steady improvement not only in the performance of the players, but also in the popularity of the sport.

A lot of credit for this turnaround goes to Gopichand. Gopi himself points to three major incidents and personalities for turning the fortunes of shuttle sport in the country. In 2004, when Sania Mirza won the WTA Hyderabad Open singles title, the tennis stadium was packed beyond capacity.

That made the then SAAP vice-chairman LV Subramanyam realise that to popularise a sport one needs to conduct international tournaments. From then on, every year Hyderabad hosted an international badminton event and the World Championships in 2009. "His (LV's) foresight helped us to improve the popularity of the sport," Gopichand said.

The second incident was Saina's quarterfinal finish at the Beijing Olympics in 2008. People started taking notice of Saina and followed her every move. She too did not disappoint