One of Indian badminton’s (sport’s at large) biggest problems in the past many years has been excessive interference of parents in coaching matters. Devender Kharb who sits for daughter Anmol’s matches and was again courtside when she made her first Super 500 semifinals at Hylo Open, has decided to step back and hand over the guiding reins to a professional coach, saying, there are drawbacks to controlling that aspect of an athlete’s game.
“I realised if she trained under a proper coach instead of being coached by me, it was far better for her game,” Devender said, while informing that Anmol had shifted base to National Centre of Excellence, Guwahati, and was now being coached by 54-year-old Malaysian coach Sankar Annamalai.
“Coaches like Park, Sankar Sir can help players go from 0 to 100. Main toh kuchh nahi hoo unke experience and tactical understanding ke saamne (I’m not as adept at formal coaching as them),” he would say.
Elaborating on the issue where he gave it a a go for couple of years, but found himself out of depth in seniors, he admitted, “At best I can motivate her if she’s slumping in a match. If she makes too many mistakes, I would get angry like a father would. But that doesn’t work for the athlete. It’s a bad idea and she needed a professional coach,” Devender added. Anmol defeated Wotld No 12 Line Christophersen and No 21 Unnati Hooda in back-to-back matches at Saarbrucken, but lost to PV Sindhu who went on to win the title.
The Faridabad parent also realised that as the level of play on the Tour increases, he found himself at a loss of the exact coaching tips needed in crucial moments. “Pro coaches can instruct when to move from defense to offense. I realised I was only reacting to her points and not anticipating them or what opponent was trying to do. All the badminton I know is because of Anmol, otherwise I’m just a national kabaddi player,” he would add, having mulled over the decision and packing her off to Guwahati a month and half back.
Earlier, she had trained at the Gopichand academy, but headed back home for her Class 12 boards interrupting the stint. “Gopi sir training was excellent, she really picked up a lot there. Kamaal hi khelne lagi thi. But we insisted she focus on studies for 6 months so that couldn’t be helped. We were training on our own at that point but she was struggling without a coach,” he added. BAI secretary Sanjay Mishra would suggest she move to Guwahati and OGQ and Yonex lined up to fill in the funding gaps for 6-8 tournaments out of 20-22.
It’s been a tough two bridge-years to seniors for the 19-year-old. “Meeting top names like Chen Yufei, An Se-young and Putri Kusuma Wardani in first round can be tough,” he says of 4 such occasions, though the remainder of the tournaments offered the reality checks needed.
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“She kept fighting, she’s always been good at that. But I realised it would be better if a coach like Sankar Sir went with her instead of me,” he recalls. “After coming back from Hyderabad her game went down. Now her attack is better, stamina work is better that shows in court speed. Technically, she’s using her wrist more than her shoulder, and that helped her beat World No 12,” he says, speaking from the Korea Super 500 where she plays this week.
While she rushed and made some wide errors against Sindhu, Devender reckons Unnati’s was a match she could have wrapped up in two, even as the latter showed grit to fight back in semifinals. “Sindhu ke saath mahaan coach the (Irwansyah). And her cheering squad definitely succeeded in distracting Anmol over 3 crucial points at least. These are things that are bound to happen and she needs to learn to play through it,” he recalls. It was yet another occasion when he realised a proper coach like Sankar, Park or Gopichand or Gurusaidutt could’ve guided her to deal with it better. “I hope Sankar Sir can travel with her and help her game,” he added, looking ahead to next season.
