Gopi Chand

Top brass: Ronnie Sehgal, General Secretary, Indian Padel Federation; Sneha Abraham Sehgal, President, IPF; Pullela Gopichand, Badminton legend and Chief National coach of India; Supriya Devgun, Founder & Managing Director, Badminton Gurukul during the IPF Boarding Meeting. 
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

For the promoters of Padel, which combined the best elements of tennis and squash and nicknamed as ‘tennis with walls’ and ‘squash in the Sun’, they couldn’t have found a better proposition than having former All England champion P. Gopi Chand joining the Indian Padel Federation in their promotional activities to give the sport a fresh fillip and make it more popular across the country.

Supriya Devgun, former bronze medallist at the 2017 BWF World Senior Badminton Championship, joins the Indian Padel Federation as a key Board Member.

In an exclusive chat with The Hindu, Gopi, the chief national badminton coach, said Padel offered the dynamics, picking up the best features from other sports like tennis, squash and even badminton, which should be a big hit in the days to come.

“Well, Padel has a World Tour and that speaks of the growing popularity,” he said.

“The best part is that it is played on a court which is one-third of the size of a tennis court between two doubles combinations and significantly means occupying very less space with no entry barrier as a kid and a 60-year-old can indulge in the sport,” Gopi said.

“Yes, definitely, at the professional level, the demands and the guidelines will be different for sure. But, for anyone familiar with other racquet sports, this is a wonderful concept,” he said.

“As a proponent of encouraging more and more to play any sport, I am really pleased to be associated with this as it would also help the society in ensuring that the kids spend time on something which should lead to a healthy and competitive lifestyle,” Gopi said. “Exactly, for this reason, I don’t feel time or my energies will be a constraint as I love to be involved in promoting sport of any kind,” he added.

On his suggestions for making Padel more popular, Gopi felt perhaps efforts on creating the infrastructure at different levels and not just at schools and also organising as many events as possible should be a great beginning.

“Well, any sport needs a coaching system in place with scientific back-up and making optimum use of any technology for better results and Padel should be no exception,” he said.

Gopi also hinted that some of the regular India shuttlers might also try their hand at this sport as some sort of a break from their daily training schedules at the same time to stay fit while enjoying this sport also.