PV Sindhu requests SAI to appoint Muhammad Hafiz Hashim as coach

PV Sindhu has requested the Sports Authority of India (SAI) and Badminton Association of India (BAI) to assign former All England champion Muhammad Hafiz Hashim as her coach until the 2024 Paris Olympics.

The two-time Olympic medallist sent a letter to the authorities on Monday asking the Malaysian to be appointed as her coach under the Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS). She has been verbally assured that her request will be granted. Sindhu, 27, has been training with Hashim for the past two weeks at the Suchitra Badminton Academy (SBA) and the Gachibowli Stadium in Hyderabad.

“She has been loving it. She started training under Hafiz after returning from the Indonesia Open (in mid-June). Hafiz will travel with her to Korea Open and Japan Open in July,” said SBA co-founder and director Pradeep Raju.

The 40-year-old Hashim was hired by SBA — where Sindhu goes for her strength and conditioning training under Srikanth Verma — in February. Hashim won the All England Open in 2003 and the Commonwealth Games men’s singles gold in Manchester in 2002. He was junior coach with the Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) before accepting a two-year contract with SBA.

“Sindhu is an integral part of SBA and is aiming for a hat-trick of individual Olympic medals which has never been achieved before. Since Hafiz is part of our academy, we will try to give our best resources to Sindhu to achieve her and Inia’s Olympic dream,” added Raju.

The former world champion, under Hashim, has been sparring with India No. 3 Kartikey Gulshan Kumar, No. 4 Ansal Yadav and Siddhartha Mishra.

Sindhu’s letter was forwarded by BAI to SAI whose internal committee will approve the appointment most likely in a week’s time.

The development comes after Sindhu parted ways with Park Tae-sang, who joined in late 2019, in February. Under the South Korean, Sindhu achieved one of her biggest successes when she became only the second individual Indian athlete (wrestler Sushil Kumar was the first) to win two Olympic medals after claiming a bronze in Tokyo.

A five-time World Championship medallist, Sindhu was out of action for almost six months after winning the Commonwealth Games gold in Birmingham last year due to a stress fracture in her left foot.

Her return to the circuit under SAI coach Vidhi Chaudhary hasn’t been very fruitful, exiting as many as seven tournaments in the first couple of rounds. Her only decent runs came at the Spain Masters, where she reached the final, and Malaysia Masters, where she lost in the semi-finals.

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