5 min readMay 24, 2026 08:36 AM IST
Not a betraying of vulnerability or a prick to pride, but admitting that a loss happened in badminton because of the drift (AC draught) in the arena, wasn’t considered cool a decade back.
The likes of Saina Nehwal, PV Sindhu, Kidambi Srikanth and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, when they were defeating all and sundry, never hinted at the windy conditions that gave the shuttle a mind and wings of its own, as the cause of their losses. But tournaments in Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia, more than anyplace else, tend to ruffle feathers – quite literally.
It wasn’t that the big names of Indian badminton were not bothered by drift, or were so proficient in shuttle control that they could ace any conditions, especially in the drifty summer-time halls of Asia. But someone like Sindhu or Satwik-Chirag could simply hit through with their power. Saina had a mix of strength to smother the shuttle when she got under it, and determination to tame it, by simply learning quickly enough. Srikanth, Prannoy and Sai Praneeth learnt to use up the first few points to get a hang of how the tosses were landing or if smashes were overshooting from one side. And in 2021, Sindhu went on to rent out the whole Gachibowli stadium ahead of the Tokyo Olympics, realising she couldn’t leave it to the last minute to acclimatise in the Covid Games.
The blowing winds affect everyone; the good players simply adapt to it carefully and even use it as a strategy as the court sides change. This implies building up an early long lead in the decider third set if you know life’s about to get stormy from the other end. Or fine-tuning smashes to the back court so they don’t fly wild. Or altogether avoiding lines and playing to the centre or hitting a cross to cut down the straight-shooting trajectory.
Adjusting shuttle lengths and hitting speeds and shuttle placements, depending on the windcock, is 90 per cent of the time, the 100 per cent skill needed in badminton, with all other things being equal.
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In the last six months, Tanvi Sharma couldn’t tame the shuttle after practising for years at the NCE Guwahati in the World Juniors final. Vennala Kalagotla and Tanvi both missed out on the Asian Juniors finals, unable to adapt to conditions.
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It’s all very well to diss on Anmol Kharb, who had an 11-2 lead against former Olympic champion Chen Yufei and went on to lose the decider. But it’s only the ignorant who do not factor in that the winds wreaked havoc with Yufei in the first half of the third set at Thailand (clearly she wasn’t choking) to put her 2-11 down, and when the sides changed, the Chinese benefitted from a flurry of points and turned the tables, while Anmol got stuck on the unfavourable end.
She didn’t offer it up as an excuse, merely stated the conditions, and vowed to work harder on shuttle control – a sign of good attitude, just like Tanvi, who will take her time to understand the tweaks needed when playing from opposite ends. But drifts are wildly varying beasts — it takes some experience to overcome them and then learn to use them to your own advantage. Badminton likes its wicked winds — sometimes an AC blast blows sideways and only at the net to add to the jeopardy with a whirring cackle.
Before their loss in Thailand, Satwik-Chirag had spoken of how, at the Hyderabad academy, they train specifically to come to grips with this element, which is almost comparable to the intense debates on the nature of cricket pitches. The finicky, fluttery, flighty shuttle, however, can be as moody and whimsical as invisible air can be. And it can change mid-match, mid-rally, from one court to the next, from Saturday to Sunday.
Coach Park Tae Sang praised Ashmita Chaliha on Thursday for her exemplary shuttle control in drifty conditions. On Friday, she perished to the same drafts as more experienced Line Kjaersfeldt showed superior mastery of conditions. Is it fair & same for both players? Not quite, because just like toss and dew in cricket, which side you wind up on, in the second half of the third game, matters plenty.
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With experience, shuttlers learn to get a semblance of control. But court drifts can reward or punish randomly. While Indians have been aided at times, everything from Prannoy’s slow starts (which he unfailingly recovers from) to Lakshya Sen’s Olympic medal miss has a bit of drifty reasons that can’t be pinpointed like poor shotmaking in video analysis. Srikanth could’ve won much more had he not played so much in the slow courts of Europe.
The greatest players overcome that, and Srikanth did go right up to the finals at the 2021 Worlds. He’s one of the better readers of winds and how to respond to them. But every time a lead is lost, it’s not always the shifty weak nerves of shuttlers. It’s the second-most crucial, non-negotiable skill that the young players need to ace, after fitness. But only an ignoramus will omit it as a factor to disparage player temperaments.
© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
