Smash hit

Aparna Popat is one of a kind. She has hewn a definite path in women’s badminton. She created history when she lifted the women’s singles title for the eighth year on trot in the 69th Senior National Badminton Championship at Jamshedpur in February this year. Aparna defeated 10 years her junior, 15-year-old former junior national champion Saina Nehwal of Andhra Pradesh at 11-3, 11-4 in just 19 minutes, to overturn the record of Madhumita Bisht, who had annexed the women’s title seven times in a row, from 1984 to 1990.

Aparna has been winning the senior national title since 1998, and there seems to be no rival to match up to her shuttle skills at the national level. Yet, her achievements have gone virtually unrecognised, for tales told and untold.

Aparna’s success story is also a saga of struggle and desperation, which could have driven lesser mortals to the precipice or to a state of resigned indifference. But it was not so for this gutsy Mumbai girl, who has made Bangalore her home, for the sake of badminton. She was ranked 16th in the world in 1999, but since then has slipped seven places to be slotted 22nd. Her pickings include a silver medal at the world junior championship at Denmark in 1996, a silver at the Commonwealth Games at Kuala Lumpur in 1998 and the French Open title the same year. She won a bronze at the Manchester Commonwealth Games in 2002, and entered the semi-final of the Swedish Open.

Aparna has taken women’s badminton to sublime heights — something that her predecessors had only dreamt of. That she has been ruling the national badminton scene for over a decade, and has won the women’s singles title eight times without a pause, is an eloquent testimony to her unmatched skills and talent.

There can be no argument that Aparna is the best woman shuttler to have come out of the Indian badminton stable. She has given a feather touch to the game no other Indian woman has given before. But the attitude of the authorities has been very off-putting.

Aparna has the ability to be a shining star on the world stage, capable of besting the best. She is toiling hard, quietly and diligently, and working on her fitness as well, at the Sports Authority of India (SAI) South Centre in Bangalore to give a cutting edge to her game. This will help her tackle the speed, power and precision of the Chinese badminton brigade, which rules the roost in women’s badminton.

Aparna’s achievements in badminton are no less remarkable than that of Sania Mirza’s in tennis. But there is a difference in where the two stand in terms of media blitz and official patronage.

Aparna was recently in the news when she pulled out of the Sudirman Cup held in China (May 11 to 17), and her absence weakened the Indian team considerably. Aparna has set her goals high, and is determined to conquer that elusive peak which she knows she can, with hard work, focus and method in her strategy. For this reason, she wants to restrict her participation in international tournaments, as she does not want to spread her talent thin.

In the recent months, she has lost in the first and second rounds of a few international tournaments. She feels this could have been avoided had she been better prepared. She lost in the quarter-final of the Swedish Open at Basel to Jie Yao of the Netherlands in 18 minutes, after upsetting eighth seed Petya Nedeltcheva of Bulgaria in the earlier round. And in the prestigious All-England Championship, Aparna got a tough draw as she ran into fourth seed Zhou Mi of China, and bowed out in straight games, albeit after a game fight. The field was dominated by the likes of world and Olympic champion Zhang Ning and Xie Xingfang, both of China. To excel in this crowd was a difficult task for Popat, but it is not beyond her. In the German Open at Mulheim, Aparna lost to Korea’s Jae Youn Jun after winning the opening round against Kati Tolmoff of Estonia.

These results clearly put Aparna in a different league among the Indian women shuttlers, but she needs to bring in that extra bit, that separates champions from the also-rans.

Aparna took a serious liking for badminton quite by chance, at the Cricket Club of India (CCI) courts in Mumbai, when she was just past her eighth birthday. But once she got a "feel of the game", there was no looking back. Anil Pradhan, a former national doubles champion, and coach at the CCI, took note of Aparna’s natural flair for badminton, and encouraged her to pursue the game seriously. Badminton had become an all-consuming passion, and a way of life, when she entered her teens. And Anil was the man who shaped her career for eight years till she shifted to Prakash Padukone’s Badminton Academy in Bangalore in 1994 to outreach her ability.

Prakash has been Aparna’s idol and role model, and it was a dream come true for her to be guided by him. With Vimal Kumar, another former national champion and international player, doing the coaching, Aparna was in good company, and her hidden potential began to surface. She honed her skills at the Padukone Academy for seven years, and during this period her badminton profile got a makeover. She then shifted to the SAI Centre under coach Ganguly Prasad as she felt that "something more had to be learnt"if she had to realise her full potential, and make the big mark at the international level.

The women shuttlers of India possessed only limited reach and success, and were never considered great medal prospects outside the ambit of the national circuit, till Aparna came along. Before Aparna, Madhumita Bisht (earlier known as Madhumita Goswami), had won seven national titles in a sequence, but Aparna is a cut above the rest.

"My mind is my strength and strokes too," says the 26-year-old champ, but concedes that she should improve her "physical strength" to get her act right at the big stage.

Aparna’s achievements in badminton are no less remarkable than that of Sania Mirza’s in tennis. But there is a difference in where the two stand in terms of media blitz and official patronage.

Born in Mumbai on January 18, 1978, to Gujarati parents Lalji Popat and Hema, Aparna studied at the J.B Pelit School in Mumbai, and did her plus two from Mt Carmel in Bangalore before returning to Mumbai to do her graduation.

Surprisingly, Aparna’s first love was tennis. But by the time she found out a good tennis coach and a tennis facility in Mumbai, she had begun winning badminton titles. She won the National Under-12 title in 1989, defeating Neelima Chaudhary at Bangalore, and since then, has been ruling the roost without much challenge. She captured her first senior national title, defeating Manjusha Pagwankar, nee Kanwar, at Pune in 1998.

It was a sweet revenge as Aparna had lost to Manjusha in the title clash at Jalandhar a year before. Since winning her first senior national title, no other woman player has been able to beat Aparna in the National Championship, barring a defeat at the hands of Jawala Gutta in the Inter-State Championship at Jaipur in 2001. Some very promising players like B R Meenakshi and Trupti Murgunde have got scorched on the court after coming in the firing line of Aparna Popat.

An assistant manager with the Indian Oil Corporation, Aparna received a scholarship from Air-India, which enabled her to pursue her badminton career without much difficulty, though her parents still had to shell out a fortune to shape her career.

Aparna’s aim now is to catch up with the Chinese and the Malaysians who call the shots in women’s badminton. "I am optimistic about beating the (top) Chinese players one day to be the best. Otherwise, there is no point in working hard," she said.

Coach Ganguly Prasad concurs that Aparna has the talent to scale greater heights. "She is intelligent, and possesses good strokes." But how far she would go would depend on "how hard she works." "She has nothing more to achieve at the national level," he asserts. Ganguly says Aparna has to hit the top 10 to give herself a chance to tame the best in the business. She has been beating players ranked in the 10 to 15 positions regularly. "I want her to play in the higher league," he says. Ganguly has the example of Pullela Gopi Chand, whose game took a dramatic turn around, after he trained under him for two years. But he can be of great help to Aparna only if he travels with her and trains her on a regular basis. His turn to travel with the team comes on rote, as the Badminton Association of India has a "rotation policy" in sending coaches abroad with the players.

It’s time Aparna had a full-time coach, like the one Sania is looking for. The coach is also saddened by the fact that Aparna has not been given the Arjuna Award yet. "It’s demoralising for the player," he noted.

Aparna trains from 7 am to 9.30 am and from 5 pm to 7.30 p m. She unwinds by listening to music, reading and watching other sports. She is looking forward to her life turning full circle when she lifts the big title.

Unfair play

The Arjuna Award should have been Aparna Popat’s after she qualified to play in two Olympics —Sydney (2000) and Athens (2004) but Aparna is apparently being made to pay for a mistake, which she made before the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000.

She took a D-Cold tablet to control a severe cold during a practice session. This proved to be a costly blunder. The medicine contained a banned substance, which was detected in a routine dope test. Aparna was slapped with a three-month ban by the International Badminton Federation, and her fair name sullied. Though the ban was lifted and Aparna qualified for the Sydney Olympics, and Athens four years later, the Sports Ministry has been holding this against her and has denied her the Arjuna Award and the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award. But the Governments of Maharashtra and Karnataka have honoured her after the Commonwealth Games, to recognise her contribution to badminton.

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