Saina resumes partnership with Gopichand

Team Udayavani, Sep 4, 2017, 5:00 PM IST

New Delhi : London Olympics bronze medal winning shuttler Saina Nehwal has resumed her partnership with former coach Pullela Gopichand with an aim to achieve her “future goals”. Saina today announced the decision on her twitter handle.

“For a while I’ve been thinking about moving my training base back to the Gopichand academy and I had a discussion about this with Gopi sir and I am really thankful to him for agreeing to help me again,” Saina tweeted. “At this stage in my career I think he can help me achieve my goals,” she added.

The 27-year-old champion shuttler had split with the national coach Gopichand before the 2014 Asian Games at Incheon, deciding to hone her skills under Vimal Kumar in Bangalore. “I’m also very thankful to Vimal sir for helping me for the last three years. He helped reach world no.1 in the rankings and also helped me win two world championships medal silver in 2015 and bronze in 2017 along with many super series title,” Saina wrote.

Happy to be back in her home town Hyderabad, Saina requested her friends to continue to support her. “I m very happy to b back home and train in Hyderabad ???? keep supporting friends,” she further wrote on her twitter handle. Saina had parted ways with Gopichand after a quarterfinal exit at the 2014 World Badminton Championships in Denmark. That was the first time that the duo had split.

In 2011, Saina started training with Baskar Babu but within three months returned to Gopichand, regretting her decision. In 2012, she bagged the bronze medal at the London Games under Gopichand’s guidance.