BADMINTON | Dhruv Negi chuffed to rediscover his form

For a year and a half, Dhruv Negi wondered where his badminton had gone. In Chennai on Thursday, he found it again.

“After a long time, I played a good tournament. For almost one-and-a-half years, I was not able to play at this level, but today I think that I played a good match,” said the 20-year-old Uttarakhand shuttler after defeating Pranay Katta 20-18, 14-16, 15-11 in the final to win the Yonex-Sunrise all India senior ranking badminton tournament men’s singles title, his maiden senior crown, in only his second year on the senior circuit.

A stress fracture in his knee, suffered soon after he graduated from the u-19 circuit, sidelined him for around six months and left him battling to regain his confidence.

“The challenges that I faced were mostly physical and a little bit mental. Physically, intensity and strength — I needed more strength to compete with the senior players. Mentally, after that injury, my overall confidence got a bit low,” he said, reflecting on his transition from the junior to the senior circuit.

Dhruv, who trains at the Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy, looks up to Lakshya Sen. “I admire his game a lot. I look forward to training with him and watching how he plays — his footwork and strokes. I try to incorporate those into my own game. I’ve been trying to get the kind of speed he has on court,” he said.

He added that he also enjoys watching videos of Lin Dan and Taufik Hidayat to learn from their speed and footwork and, in Hidayat’s case, his celebrated backhand.

Dhruv’s immediate focus is the Philippines International Challenge, which begins next week.