All England Badminton 2023: From PV Sindhu’s new coach to Lakshya Sen’s form, talking points ahead of badminton event

In the illustrious hory of the All England Badminton Championships, only two Indians have so far claimed the top honour, with Pullela Gopichand’s men’s singles triumph in 2001 coming 21 years after Prakash Padukone’s men’s singles title in 1980.
There have been three times that Indians have come within a whisker of winning: Prakash Nath in 1947, Saina Nehwal in 2015 and Lakshya Sen last year, all losing finals.
As another edition of the All England Championships appears on the horizon, here are the top talking points for the Indian contingent heading to Birmingham:
New coach and a minefield of a draw for Sindhu
PV Sindhu’s partnership with South Korea’s Park Tae-Sang was a particularly fruitful one, one that led to a bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics and the gold at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games. However, last month, Sindhu and Park parted ways, with results not coming over the last few months.
Sindhu and her camp have moved quickly to enl the services of Malaysian Hafiz Hashim, who has experienced success at the All England Championships himself.
She will need that know-how in her corner, particularly after being drawn in a quarter that also includes He Bingjiao and Tai Tzu Ying.
While Sindhu has burnished her credentials as a big-stage player with multiple World Championship medals and two Olympic medals, glory at the All England has so far evaded her.
Second game blues for Lakshya in 2023
Until he ran head-first into the towering figure of Viktor Axelsen in the final last year, Lakshya Sen looked well on his way to becoming the third Indian to win the title at the prestigious tournament.
This time around, Lakshya has started the year 2023 in uncharacterically stuttering form, not making it into the semis of Malaysia Open, India Open or the Indonesia Masters in 2023.
What has been noticeable in the three exits he has made at these three events is how he’s claimed the first game but fizzled out in the second. At Malaysia, for example, he won the first game in his opening round encounter against HS Prannoy before dropping the second game 21-12. He eventually lost the match.
At the India Open, he lost in the second round to Rasmus Gemke, where he won the first game 21-16 before allowing the Danish badminton player back into the contest dropping the second game 15-21. Gemke eventually ousted Lakshya.
At the Indonesia Masters, there was another second game bust while playing against Jonatan Chrie where he took the first game 21-15, but flat-lined 10-21 in the second before going on to lose.
Of course, three results are not a big enough sample size to indicate a trend.
Worryingly, the Indian was also stunned Chro Popov in the first round of the German Open last week.
His route to another All England final will be tricky, as he has drawn fifth seed Chou Tien Chen in the opening round. Should he win, he will face the victor of the contest between the Danish pair of Anders Antonsen and Rasmus Gemke in Round 2.
Satwik-Chirag flying the flag for Indian doubles
Over the last couple of years, the sprightly men’s doubles pairing of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty has been the backbone of some of India’s biggest triumphs at the world stage, including the Thomas Cup title, which wouldn’t have been possible without the men’s pair lifting their game.
Last year also saw them claim the French Open Super 750 title besides the India Open Super 500 and a medal at the World Championships. Their results on the court also saw them rise to a world ranking of 5.
Coming into the 2023 All England, they have been drawn against the Indonesian pairing of Marcus Fernaldi Gideon and Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo. The Indians have yet to beat the ‘Minions’ in 11 encounters, and will hope that they can be victorious in the 12th time of asking.
Should they manage to emerge from that unscathed, they are likely to find the second seeded Aaron Chia and Soh Wooi Yik in their path in the quarters. Should they win that, there is the other established pairing of Mohammad Ahsan and Hendra Setiawan potentially waiting for them.
Srikanth’s early season struggles
After the 2022 BWF season had ended, Kidambi Srikanth travelled to Indonesia for a few weeks to train at Jakarta’s Prisma Sports Club, looking to iron out the flaws in his game.

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Having come back, he told reporters that he is now on the lookout for a foreign coach – preferably Indonesian or a Malaysian – to work with him as he looks to regain the form that propelled him to the top ranked shuttler in the world at one stage. Currently ranked 19th in the world, Srikanth can be mesmerisingly good and equally bad in spurts.
So far in 2023, he has competed in three tournaments, and has yet to win a game. He lost in the first rounds at the Malaysia Open (to Kenta Nishimoto), India Open (to Viktor Axelsen) and Indonesia Masters (to Shesar Hiren Rhustavito).
At the 2023 All England, he could face the tricky Japanese shuttler Kodai Naraoka in the second round, before potentially running into either Kenta Nishimoto or Lee Zii Jia in the quarters.
Now inside Top 10, Prannoy looking for signature title
For a player who has made a name for himself upsetting big names on tour, HS Prannoy couple potentially run into a fair few big names in the draw. In the second round, he is likely to run into the third-seeded Anthony Sinisuka Ginting. If he makes it to the next round, lying in wait could be anyone from the quartet of fifth seed Chou Tien Chen, compatriot Lakshya Sen, or the Danish pair of Anders Antonsen and Rasmus Gemke.
For a shuttler of his calibre and who has a variety of smashes in his quiver, Prannoy would really be keen to win a big-ticket event.
Treesa-Gayathri pairing primed for big year
For many years, success in badminton tournaments was only expected from India’s singles shuttlers. Then came the gun-slinging duo of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, who have shown that they’re capable of contending for big titles as well.
And before anyone could dismiss their emergence as a flash in the pan, India is starting to get a whiff of a good doubles pairing in women’s doubles too, thanks to Gayatri Gopichand and Treesa Jolly. In the last few months, the duo has put together a string of results that are an indicator of their potential.
They won a bronze at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham last year, and were a key cog in the wheel that was the Indian badminton team which rolled its way to a bronze medal at the Badminton Asia Mixed Team Championships at Dubai last month. In Dubai, they had a win over the World No 5 pair from Malaysia, Thinaah Muralitharan and Pearly Tan. They also regered wins in the quarters (over Hong Kong’s Ng Tsz Yau-Ng Wing Yung) and semis (over Liu Sheng Shu-Tan Ning).