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Jwala cautions BAI against favouritism
Fiery southpaw Jwala Gutta on Monday once again asked the Badminton Association of India to stop the ‘step-motherly treatment’ towards its doubles players, saying its high time the national governing body changes its attitude.
Shillong: Fiery southpaw Jwala Gutta on Monday once again asked the Badminton Association of India to stop the ‘step-motherly treatment’ towards its doubles players, saying its high time the national governing body changes its attitude.
“I've won medals at the highest level but you're still not capitalising on the achievement. The doubles are still being given a step-motherly treatment. You need to change your attitude,” a concerned Jwala said.
“After Ashwini and I, there is nobody and that is the plain truth. It's the doubles I'm more worried about,” a three-time medalist in the Commonwealth Games 2006, 2010 and 2014 lamented.
“If we want to compete with China, we have to encourage all the events. We can't just bank on singles all the time. Doubles is taken seriously everywhere except India,” the ace shuttler said.
“We keep talking about China but if you see...they have at least six players in men's women's doubles and mixed doubles. They give a lot of importance to their doubles players,” the only Indian to have qualified for Olympics in two disciplines said.
She pointed out that they won a team bronze in the Thomas Uber Cup in 2014 and with the Asian Team Championships coming up in Hyderabad from February 15, there's no one India can bank on expect for her and Ashwini.
“We still have not done anything to strengthen our team. As a team we are just Saina, Sindhu, myself and Ashwini. There's nobody else we can bank on. That is because we are not paying attention to our doubles.
That's why we're not producing good doubles players," said the former world no 6. "Asian Team Championship is coming up but we don't have a second pair. Even we cannot bank on our third singles -- we just have Saina and Sindhu."
However, she acknowledged BAI's efforts to appoint a doubles coach in badminton in Tan Kim Her, a Malaysian who has assumed charge in November.
"I had been talking about a doubles coach for last three years. I'm glad he's here. There's lot of personal attention on me and Ashwini, which we needed."
