For a young athlete, there is no teacher quite like experience. No amount of preparation can substitute for time spent on court, in the crucible of competition. But sometimes, just sometimes, you can learn just as much by being on the sidelines, watching those better than you – for now – navigate their way through tough matches and tournaments. For Priyanshu Rajawat, the 2022 Thomas Cup was one such experience.
Unless we’re talking cricket or hockey at the Olympics, team competitions seldom get the media attention that a star individual athlete does. The coverage of PV Sindhu’s silver medal success in Rio de Janeiro was exponentially higher than the column inches that India’s Thomas Cup win earned. If you look at badminton history though, both achievements are very much comparable.
You cannot even begin to overstate just how difficult it is to win the Thomas Cup, the World Men’s Team Championships, which will complete 75 years of existence in Chengdu (China) next year. Till 2022, only five nations had ever won it, and of those, Japan (2014) and Denmark (2016) were one-time winners. Indonesia, with 14 wins, and China, with 10, have dominated the event, with Malaysia having won the last of their five titles back in 1992.
Despite having produced All-England champions and players who have been ranked No.1 in the world, India had never even reached the final before 2022. So for Rajawat to be part of such an epochal triumph is something that the young man will cherish for the rest of his life. He may only have played a dead-rubber, beating Canada’s Victor Lai 21-13, 20-22, 21-14, but the lessons learned during that unforgettable week in Bangkok will always stay with him.
“I got to learn a lot from the Thomas Cup campaign, getting to be part of the team with the big names, watching how they train and prepare for the matches,” Priyanshu told Revsportz. “The team chemistry was the best you can hope for and each of the ten members treated each other like brothers. They gave me the chance to lift the trophy, and it was an awesome feeling for me. That tournament taught me a lot, especially getting to train with Shrikant Bhaiya and Prannoy Bhaiya, and observing how they play.”
What he picked up while watching India’s finest shuttlers script an incredible victory stood him in good stead recently during the Orléans Masters in France. With the tournament now upgraded to Super-300 status on the tour, Priyanshu faced his biggest test in the second round against Kenta Nishimoto, the No.1 seed.
Nishimoto, a former Asian Games bronze medallist, is currently ranked No.12 in the world, but you wouldn’t have known it the way Priyanshu dismantled his game. A 21-8, 21-16 saw him breeze into the last eight, and though Taipei’s Chi Yu Jen pushed him all the way in both games, a routine thrashing of the higher ranked Nhat Nguyen – Vietnamese-born, but representing Ireland – set up a final clash with Denmark’s Magnis Johannesen.
India’s young champion, recently with the #OrleansMasters2023 with high hopes of winning the Gold 🥇 in #Paris2024. The journey of @PriyanshuPlay, his winning mentality, the heroes he looks forward to & much more. @AgeasFederal @TheRohan22 @BoriaMajumdar @BAI_Media @PGopichand73 pic.twitter.com/MSyZcO3NVc
— RevSportz (@RevSportz) April 14, 2023
“At the start, I didn’t think I could win the tournament, but after getting the first win I got the confidence to go forward,” said Priyanshu. “But coming to the Kenta Nishimoto match, I did not feel any extra pressure because of his higher seeding. The only thing I was keeping in mind was to give my hundred percent.
“Winning and losing are part of the game, you just have to give your best. But winning that match gave me that extra boost to go forward, and I was determined to not let any match slip away. Also, it was important to take one step at a time and not think of the finals. After getting past [the shuttlers from] Taipei and Ireland in the quarters and semis, I had a setback in the second set of the final. Anil sir [N Anil Kumar, his coach] told me to take my time and not to hurry to win the points. I recovered in the third set and when I actually won, I had no clue how to celebrate. I just lifted my hands up in the air (laughs).”
After the convincing win against Nishimoto, Priyanshu had showcased his intent by saying “Ab aur kisiko nehi chhorunga [Now, I won’t leave anyone else].” And that mental strength was very much in evidence in the final, when he lost a close second set 21-19. “I don’t take any pressure ahead of a match,” said Priyanshu. “My focus remains on enjoying the game because I believe that if you take pressure, you might lose. If you don’t take pressure, then also you might lose. So why take pressure?
“I always try to give my hundred percent on the court and not think of the result, because losing is something that will come one day or the other. I keep myself prepared for that day, so that I can take my lessons from failure. And if I win, it should not overwhelm me, and the focus should be to replicate that in the next tournament.”
His journey to a first international title began in Dhar in Madhya Pradesh, a town that was once the capital of a princely state. “I used to see my brother play when I was six, and thought of starting the game,” said Priyanshu. “After two years, I joined The Gopichand Academy in Gwalior, where I played for a year. Then I came to Hyderabad with Gopi sir, and that was the best thing that happened to me. It’s been twelve years now that I am training with Gopi sir, and it has been great for me.
“We get the best of coaches here, and to train with Gopi sir is really great. This journey was something big for me and in the meantime, I won a few tournaments as well. Winning the Thomas Cup was the biggest for us. Overall, it has been great so far, and I would love to add that the highest credit for this win goes to Gopi sir.”
It says much about Priyanshu’s strength of character that he left his home and familiar surroundings behind when not even a teenager, leaving first for Gwalior, 600km to the north-east, and then to Hyderabad, nearly 1000km from his roots. Such is his focus that instead of pondering those sacrifices, Priyanshu is already looking ahead to the future, and the Holy Grail that is the Olympic tournament.
Closer on the horizon are the Sudirman Cuo, the mixed-team competition where India have never reached the last four, and the Asian Games in China. Victory in Orleans took him to a career-best No.38 in the world rankings. At present, there are three Indians in the top 25 – HS Prannoy (9), Kidambi Srikanth (23) and Lakshya Sen (24) – and Priyanshu has set his sights far higher than just breaking into the top 40.
“I’ll take part in the Asian Games qualifiers and hope to qualify,” he said. “After that, I will play the Malaysia Masters. I hope to win that tournament because that will improve my ranking. The ultimate dream is to qualify for the Olympics, and win gold for the country.”
In the men’s singles, no Indian has bettered Srikanth’s quarter-final appearance in the Rio Olympics in 2016. Just qualifying will be an ordeal in itself, but Priyanshu isn’t a personality to dwell on the negatives. He’s going to be fully focussed on what’s possible, rather than think of what hasn’t been done before. Nishimoto found that out the hard way in Orleans.