The result was probably never in doubt. Curious was how bright NextGen's promise was when pitted against current superstars. If we look at the 20-minute montage of the second game, it heats up. It wasn't the first time though.
No wonder, PV Sindhu entered the semi-finals of the India Open with a 21-7, 21-18 win in straight games. But it was Ashmita Chaliha, a 22-year-old lefty with a pixie cut and a flood-blooded jump smash, who presented herself on TV screens as one of the most exciting upcoming talents in Indian women's singles badminton. A lame first game later, she scored in the second and finished as a double Olympic medalist before going out.
Edwin Irivan and Suranjan, their coaches at the Assam Badminton Academy, hoped to get the script. The great thing about Irivan's parting with his disciple was that he was playing completely like it was the second game. It was good advice contained in the precedent. In the senior national semi-final in her hometown Guwahati two years ago, Ashmita lost to Sindhu after the second game - 21-10, 22-20. Friday's quarterfinal was almost a mirror image. It mentions that the youngster hasn't played a tournament in the last two years, recovering from Covid himself and for the most part confined to training sessions on Zoom.
On Friday, she ran into errors in the opening game; Loose strokes, mishits piled on mishits and she was trailing 5-11 within the first five minutes. Veins of panic, thoughts rushing through his mind, focusing too much on plotting the next point. HS Prannoy's roar broke after every few points from the adjoining Court 2 in what appeared to be a predictable Sindhu attack.
But nerves calmed in time for the second game as the 84-ranked player sent off her senior backpedaling - opening the court and sending a fully-baked crosscourt into a backhand corner miles from Sindhu's reach. The rallies got longer, Sindhu started missing lines and the youngster jumped to hit the net. Ashmita, who picked up her jump smash by watching YouTube videos of Lee Chong Wei and trying to imitate her action in training, launched the slender frame both feet off the ground into the air, to whip a smash down the line. A no-look whodunit return in which Sindhu later sprayed the line was on level terms for the first time - 9-9.
A round-the-head by Sindhu, the crosscourt slice winner had Ashmita spread across the lunge, grazing her forearm on the court. Was asked to tape. Welcome to the jungle. Sindhu, nervous to close matters, speeds up her arm movement a few frames and lets the youngster pull herself off the back-court, where she sat cross-legged after a fall, and finds her feet. .
Usually, Ashmita and her lot of young Indian women players rarely get a chance to compete against or even compete with the biggest names of their sport. Courts and tournaments Sindhu or Saina are too rare for a group of 20-somethings to enter the middle of a regular calendar year. Sindhu's coach Park Tae Sang a few days back had clearly mentioned the need to train and feed each other for the sport and its players to see long-term benefits.
Right now, despite being a sport that owns both Olympic and World Championship medals, badminton lacks a focused plan in the country and the training is poor. Players are divided into groups, most doing their jobs. Female elite names train themselves with their own separate teams and there is little dissemination of knowledge to the bottom rungs.
After this performance at the Indian Open, Ashmita will take home sticky notes, 5000 ranking points and learn that at this level, second games and second chances wait for no one. For Sindhu, this is the fifth India Open semi-final as a title on a platter.