At 27, P. Kashyap, winner of men’s singles badminton gold in the recent Commonwealth Games, may be peaking a little late in his career. But, this flamboyant shuttler is now high on confidence as he prepares for this weekend’s World championship in Copenhagen.
Significantly, Kashyap is quite modest about his prospects.
“The time for preparation for the Worlds after the recent CWG was very less. I don’t want to indulge in tall talk. All I will say is that the effort will be there. But, essentially, my focus is more on next month’s Asian Games. The good thing is that I feel pretty confident having won the first major gold of my career in Glasgow. I worked a lot on many aspects of my game thanks to Gopi Anna (chief national coach P. Gopi Chand),” he said after a five-hour training session which started at 5 a.m. on Wednesday.
Single-minded“I just want to do my best without thinking too much about anything else. In fact, I never look at the draw of any tournament beyond the first round. My approach is to take it match by match,” Kashyap said.
“I am also not familiar with the playing conditions in Copenhagen. But you have to face all challenges to be a cut above the rest.
“The intensity to do well is there and I just hope to have one good week so as to come up with a special performance — though it is going to be extremely tough as all the players enter the Worlds with a lot of preparation,” the champion shuttler said.
“This time the Worlds will be different because of high expectations. It feels good to be recognised by people. But again, being ranked World No. 27, you have to look beyond these issues.
“The one thing which I will try to avoid is to lose close games. That has been the single factor which saw me miss many titles in the past,” Kashyap said.
“My target is to break into the top 10 in the world by this year-end and I believe I can do this, but I should not be complacent.”
