Gopi Chand played his part in the rise of stars such as Kashyap, Srikanth and Sindhu.
| Photo Credit: File photo: Getty Images

Pullela Gopichand still remembers the disruption caused by badminton’s scoring overhaul during his playing career and as the sport gears up to embrace another “tactical shift”, the India coach believes a few players will be “wiped off”.

The 15×3 system (three games of 15 points each) will replace the current 21×3 format (three games of 21 points each) next year. The BWF said the shorter format would help in managing player workload in a crowded calendar.

Gopichand recalled how he had won the All England title in 2001 under the traditional 15-point format before badminton briefly switched to the 7×5 scoring system.

The experiment was abandoned within a year, with the sport reverting to the traditional 15-point scores for men and 11-point scores for women at that time.

“When I won the All England, a few months later they moved from 15 to 7. It took me time because I was one of those players who was a stroke player. I wanted time to get adjusted. It took me a year to come back,” Gopichand said in response to a PTI query during an interaction here ahead of the World Championships.

“And then by the time I was kind of settling in, they brought us back to the long form and it was a death blow. Because you train, you detrain, and your endurance drops. Then to go back and play 15 was impossible. These definitely make a big impact. A few players, it will wipe off, a few players might benefit.”

Drawing parallels with the 15×3 system approved by the Badminton World Federation (BWF), Gopichand said the shorter format would place greater premium on speed, power and mental strength, particularly during the closing stages of the games.

“You scoring points will be important, but you not giving away points will be even more important. The speed and the power and the focus need to be top notch. The mind will play much more,” he said.

According to the national coach, doubles players are likely to feel the biggest impact as shorter games will make every phase of the contest more critical.

“The serve, serve-return and the attack will be even more fierce in the doubles game…people who can hold their nerves and play the strokes will be important,” he said.

“In singles, already you can see a bunch of youngsters playing that whether it’s people like Alwi Farhan (Indonesia), Christo Popov (France). I think a lot of flat doubles kind of a game is what’s being played. So I think that will be a few more players might end up coming like that.”

“The crucial points in the game will be the 11th and 12th points. How you take pressure at 13-14 or 15-14 will become very important. There will be a lot of pressure points throughout the match.”

Gopichand felt the change could alter the character of the sport, with the format favouring flatter, faster exchanges over the more elaborate, stroke-heavy rallies a longer format allowed.

“Players will try to be a lot safer and not too much of skills. That’s one area which I think the sport will miss out on because a longer format typically gives you a little more freedom to open up your arms and play a few more strokes. Here it’s going to be a lot more flat, parallel games,” he said.

Not convinced by BWF’s logic

Gopichand also felt the BWF could have achieved its objective of reducing player workload differently.

“If they were planning to extend the tournament schedule to two weeks, they could have stayed on with the 21-point system because it doesn’t make sense to shorten it and lengthen the tournament both at the same time,” he said.

“The purpose was to give rest to the players, and that could have been achieved by having the tournament over a 10-12-day period instead of six days. But probably BWF has its own reasons. It’s very subjective.”

Gopichand believes veteran Indian players such as H.S. Prannoy and Kidambi Srikanth might benefit from the new scoring system.

“It will be better for them. We’re not very sure how exactly because when speed goes up these guys have to move quicker. So training to move quicker needs you to be a lot more agile, a lot more faster and that could lead to injuries as well.

“The nuance is everything. The smaller detail is everything. If I had a choice I would pick the 15 for an older player… For some players it might be a little tough, but by and large Indian players are okay.”

Who after Satwik-Chirag?

Gopichand has admitted India does not yet have a clear answer to who fill the men’s doubles void once Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty move past their peak.

Asked how India plans to build a supply chain in men’s doubles beyond its top pair, Gopichand did not offer a ready roadmap.

“It’s a very valid question. I think we need to get the best players coming together, playing together, some system like that needs to be there. We are very democratic in that set-up.

“We used to have five academies, or four academies, five years back. Today there are 500 academies — 5,000 independent players and 5,000 independent minds. When it comes to doubles, that compounds the problem,” he said.

He acknowledged that very few players, who consider themselves strong in singles, are willing to experiment in doubles.

“Very rarely do we have a decent singles player pick doubles if he is good at it. Not very often do you see that switch…it could be good talent for singles but exceptional talent for doubles.”

Published – August 05, 2026 12:43 am IST

Strong opinion: Gopi Chand believes there was no need to change the 21-point format to the new 3×15 scoring system.
| Photo Credit: FILE PHOTO: K. MURALI KUMAR

“What not to eat is more important than what to eat,” says former badminton player and chief national coach for the India national badminton team, Pullela Gopichand. In his opinion, there is a lot of focus today on which superfood to eat, but “it is the things you don’t eat that are really going to keep you healthy,” says Gopichand, who has recently co-authored a book, The Longevity Code (Penguin Random House India) with physician-scientist Dr Sophia Pathai.

Nutrition, not surprisingly, is a crucial aspect of this book, which seeks to “decode your biological age, understand the science of ageing, and apply breakthroughs in metabolism, movement, and mental well-being,” as the blurb states. The Longevity Code also examines the science and biology of ageing, the difference between biological and chronological age, understanding resilience, the role of genetics in ageing, the concept of healthspan and why exercise is essential for longevity, among other things.

“Since we have started to live longer than ever before, it also makes sense to live healthier. Both are not necessarily the same thing,” Gopichand says. “People are living longer, but with disease, which doesn’t make so much sense. If you are living longer, you might as well live healthier.”

Gopichand emphasises the importance of the concept of healthspan: the number of years of life spent in good health, free from chronic disease and ageing-related impairments. “For me, some of these things are fundamental. lI jwonder why we are not seeing them.” h

The idea of co-writing the book sprang from the two’s mutual connection: Sateesh Andra, “a long-time friend and someone I deeply admire for his foresight in science and innovation,” writes Gopichand and Sophia in the book.

Sateesh, the Managing Director of Endiya Partners, was Sophia’s friend. “She met me at my academy in Hyderabad, and we started talking,” Gopichand recalls talking to her about his journey, the misconceptions about health he once had, the challenges in this space that both athletes and laypeople often face and how many classical Indian practices, which have been left behind, were actually good for us. “Those kinds of conversations happened, and one thing led to another, and she spoke about writing a book together.”

Their book repeatedly emphasises the value of adopting a lifestyle proven to boost longevity: real food, physical activity, adequate sleep, and stress management. “New age sciences are not tested enough to keep looking at them as miracle answers. We need to get back to simple things: sunlight, sleep, stress a little less, move a little more, stay a little thinner and work a little harder. I think those fundamentals are more critical.”

Gopichand also believes that many of our traditional practices inherently support a better healthspan. He brings up the example of his grandfather, who is 97 years old, and how he lived when he was younger. “He told me that at 10-10.30 am, he would eat fermented grain with an onion or pickle or something, then go and work in the fields. Then at 5 or 6 in the evening, they would return, eat again and sleep,” he says. Additionally, like other people of that time, his grandfather rarely ate sweets and would walk a lot; they were smaller, had little body fat, and barely had lifestyle diseases, says Gopichand, who thinks that our culture and past ways of living should not have been discarded so willingly.

This current generation, he says, is less fit than our ancestors. “There are reports saying that one in three kids is obese, one in three kids is breathless, six to eight out of 10 kids have flat feet, lower bite and jaw strength as well as the number of teeth are falling. Our average height has stayed the same for 100 years, kids are being born with less muscle and more fat, one in three women have gestational diabetes…the trends are not great.”

Gopichand is concerned not just for individuals, but also for the country, “which has such great potential and wants to be Viksit Bharat or the next Vishwaguru. That talk is of no use if we don’t have inherent strength,” says Gopichand, who believes that India as a nation needs to invest in health. He feels that our focus on detecting and treating diseases rather than preventing them is misplaced. “I think that is an area more people should focus on: prevention, more than detection and curing, is what we would want.”

Published – May 30, 2026 09:45 am IST