New Delhi: India’s doubles coach, Flandy Limpele of Indonesia who was hired by Badminton Association of India (BAI) to replace Tan Kim Her who resigned on March 2019, said bad attitude of the players and lack of team work was affecting the growth of doubles in India.
“Some players are individualistic. There is lack of team work and they only care about individual self. In doubles, you can’t do that,” said Limpele to Indian media.
The 45-year-old Indonesian who played for Indonesia in 4 Olympics – the 1996 Atlanta, 2000 Sydney, 2004 Athens, and 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics is currently in charge of India’s top men’s doubles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles players such as Satwiksairaj Rankireddy, Chirag Shetty, Ashwini Ponappa, Sikki Reddy and Pranav Jerry Chopda. However, he was clearly troubled by some attitudes of his players.
“Some players in this camp have negative attitude, I don’t know why, but I think maybe it’s been like that for a while and it looks like this habit could turn into the culture within the team,” said Limpele.
“I’m trying to change this culture because you can’t be individualistic in doubles. I want to slowly change this, hopefully it will work. But if it doesn’t and (this is) the way they want it, then no foreign coach will be willing to stay longer,” warned Limpele as he was referring to India’s former men’s singles coach Mulyo Handoyo, the Korean coach Kim Ji Hyun who guided PV Sindhu to the 2019 World Championship title and Tan Kim Her of Malaysia who resigned on March 2019, one-and-a-half years before his contract with the BAI was to end after the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
“I could probably feel what the previous coaches felt. The system in India is unique, and handling the attitude of the players are challenging for me. My contract is until Olympic Games 2020. So, let’s see how it goes. I do hope I can bring doubles medal from the Olympics. God willing, I do hope so, hopefully, the players are also willing to work hard for the medal.”
Limpele also stated that India’s World No. 12 men’s pair Satwiksairaj Rankireddy/Chirag Shetty could potentially deliver India’s first doubles medal at Tokyo Olympics provided they strengthen their defense and work on overall consistency.
