Men’s doubles specialists, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, will be among India’s biggest medal hopes in badminton at the Paris Olympics 2024.Their recent performances, including the historic gold won at the Hangzhou Asian Games, have given the country’s sports lovers confidence that Indian badminton will deliver its fourth successive medal at the Olympics after Saina Nehwal’s historic bronze at the London Games in 2012.
However, there was a time when self-doubt had crept up into the minds of Satwik and Chirag after enduring a series of early exits on the BWF tour circuit.
The two probably experienced one of the lowest phases of their careers when they crashed out of Japan Masters, Denmark Open, China Open, Singapore Open and Spain Masters in the first round. Then, they lost in the second round of the All-England Championships and French Open.
This is when Satwik and Chirag felt the need for some “external” stimulus, a mental trainer or mind coach who could guide them through their lean phase, help cope with pressure in competitive situations, manage performance anxiety and overcome the burden of expectations so that they could play freely and consistently well at the highest level.
Here’s when renowned mind captain with over two decades of experience, Shree Advani — multiple-time world billiards and snooker champion Pankaj Advani’s elder brother — was introduced to Satwik in Bengaluru.
Shree, who has been working with Satwik for close to a year now, told TOI that mind coaching has helped the star doubles shuttler become more comfortable in his own skin, transforming him into an amazing competitor and fierce team man who just wants to enjoy the game.
“Initially, he was hesitant because he hadn’t done this sort of thing before. For the longest time, I thought he would refuse to do it. Then Satwik flew down from Hyderabad (his training base) to Bengaluru for a meeting. We met for an hour over the weekend. He then took a cab to the airport and called up his manager midway. ‘I want to go ahead with this’, he said. So, in that one hour, we clicked,” Shree said on the sidelines of the India Open Super 750 series.
“We have regular interactions with each other. We work on different aspects of his personality and game. Sometimes, it’s about working on how he can handle pressure, how he can be a greater support to Chirag. There are times it’s about how he can manage the performance aspect, how he can manage to stay aware (of situations). It all depends on the need of the hour. He is an amazing competitor and one of the purest athletes I have ever met. He was shy earlier but has now become a lot more comfortable in his own skin and a lot more confident,” added Shree, who is empanelled with GoSports Foundation which manages Satwik.
Giving insight into the mind of Satwik, Shree shared one interaction he had with the current World No. 2 after one of his first-round exits recently.
“I don’t exactly remember the tournament but it was definitely after one of Satwk-Chirag’s opening round losses. We had a long chat and it was around dinner time here in India. He was stressed about various things…there were certain aspects. They are a team – Satwik, Chirag and Mathias Boe (men’s doubles foreign coach) and Satwik was trying to fit into that set-up and implement strategies made by the team. He was struggling a bit with that after his losses. It wasn’t so much about physical struggle. We didn’t even talk too much in terms of, ‘okay, this is the problem or this is the solution’.
A lot of it was just him thinking out loud, but he knew he had somebody who’s not just a sounding board, but someone who can also add value to his game. It was about bringing the conversation back to making him aware of his strengths and where he felt he was falling short. It was making him understand that he was right up there. We treat it like this way, ‘ok, first-round loss, then something big is coming’. We can just take it more positively. Nobody wants to lose in the first round but it happens, it happens to the best athletes in the world. I think this conversation was shortly before they reached world number one,” informed Shree, who has on his roster athletes like Treesa Jolly, Shikha Gautam, Karun Nair, Robin Uthappa, Nishant Dev and Kush Maini, among others and has previously worked with P V Sindhu, Parupalli Kashyap and Sai Praneeth.
Talking about his role as mind coach, Shree said: “You have a technical and tactical coach like Mathias who plays that role where he works on their physical skill building. So, the mind coach works on mental skill building. Mind coaching is not only about how to use the mind, but learning how not to use the mind because the mind can pose as an interference in performance. You’re training your body all these years to deliver on court when it matters, then suddenly, the mind shows up and plays havoc with the entire strategy that you may have. So, mind coaching is about sometimes teaching the athlete how not to use the mind.”