'We are a combination of attacking plays, but now we are more organised and don't just shoot the ball. ”
India's Men's Doubles Rankireddy/Shetti have made Indian badminton history in 2023, including reaching the top of the world and winning gold medals at the Asian Games and Asian Championships in Hangzhou, and now they are aiming for a medal at this year's Paris Olympics, regardless of the colour of the medal.
Medals regardless of color
Looking ahead to this year, the 26-year-old says that this is an Olympic year, that the Olympics are their ultimate goal, and that any player who competes at the Olympics will definitely want to bring home a medal, as does he and his partner: "Obviously, we want a medal, regardless of the colour, but in the end it's all about how we prepare and how we perform. We don't want to put too much pressure on ourselves, we just want to enjoy ourselves. Although we want medals, we have to take it one step at a time, and that's the key to a good performance. In addition to the Olympics, there are also all competitions this year, such as the All England Championships, which we have not yet won. Also, this year there is the Soup Cup and we want to do well because we are the defending champions. ”
SHITI: Men's doubles is the most competitive event in badminton today
Shetti also pointed out that today's men's doubles competition is the most fierce of the five individual events in badminton, and the pattern is the most open, including South Korea, Malaysia and China Men's Doubles are all strong: "Other individual events have a monopoly of players or combinations, such as Men's Singles Axelsen, Women's Singles An Xiying, Women's Doubles Chen Qingchen and Jia Yifan, Mixed Doubles Zheng Siwei and Huang Yaqiong. But in Men's Doubles, I can't pick a single combination that can win more than one title, maybe 3 or 4 groups, and the Men's Doubles competition is very open. ”
Men's Doubles Final
2023 China Badminton Masters
Leung Wai Hang
Wang Chang
VS
Rankireddy
Shetty
Summing up last year's overall performance, Hughti bluntly said that their performance was very good, although it cannot be said to be perfect, but there were still many highlight moments, including winning the Asian Championships, the Asian Games gold medal, and also becoming the world No. 1, achieving a lot of set goals, although not all, but overall it was a good year.
The duo suffered a few injuries last year, but they will be better able to deal with it now, be more cautious in back-to-back races, and be more careful in the second after giving their all in one race, as they aim to win medals in major tournaments this year, so they will be better to choose their races and not blindly compete too much.
Coach Bowie plays a key role
Sui (right)
The 43-year-old Danish coach Boe was also a key figure in Rankireddy/Shetti making a number of major breakthroughs in their careers.
After winning the men's doubles silver medal at the London 2012 Olympic Games with Mogensen, Bowie became the men's doubles coach of the Indian national badminton team, not only helping India win the soup cup for the first time in history, but also helping Rankireddy/Hughetti to become one of the strongest men's doubles players today.
Shetti said that the last two years of working with coach Bowie has been really good and special: "We worked with Bowie six months before the Tokyo Olympics and his style was very different at the time, although he left for a while in between, we didn't have a coach for seven months, but he came back to help us before the Cup, and we got used to working with him very quickly, and that's why we rose so quickly. ”
'We are a combination of attacking play, but now we are more organised and we don't just kill the ball blindly and that's what Mathius has helped us with, training with quality, training in the right direction and being more disciplined in the game. And since Matthius' arrival, our defence has improved. ”