PSPB Inter-unit badminton: Trupti,Gayatri advance to semis

City shuttlers and international players,Trupti Murgunde and Gayatri Vartak,advanced to the semifinals of the 29th Petroleum Sports Promotion Board's Inter-unit badminton tournament being held at the PYC Hindu Gymkhana badminton courts on Friday.

City shuttlers and international players,Trupti Murgunde and Gayatri Vartak,advanced to the semifinals of the 29th Petroleum Sports Promotion Board’s Inter-unit badminton tournament being held at the PYC Hindu Gymkhana badminton courts on Friday.

Gayatri Vartak had no trouble beating her opponent Maya in the quarterfinal. She won the game 21-0,21-0 in straight sets. Trupti on the other hand had a tough encounter against Prajakta Sawant. She met some resistance before beating her 22-20 and 21-19. “I was not completely satisfied with my performance. I was slow on court. I was also a little tentative as I was playing her for the first time. But I always expected to win this game,” said the international shuttler. She will face Ruth Mishra in the semifinal on Saturday. “I had played Ruth in the team event and had beaten her in a tough three-setter. I am confident,” she added.

Trupti was born and brought up in Pune. She studied in the English Medium Secondary School and then did her commerce at BMCC. She started playing badminton at the age of nine at the Garware Bal Bhavan under coach Vasant Gore. She then practiced at the WIE complex under the PDMBA coaching scheme under the guidance of Satpal Rawat and Ashwin Talwalkar. At the age of 14 she shifted to Bangalore where she enrolled in the Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy and is currently based there.

The highlights of her career have been her four gold medals in the SAFF games,two each in Sri Lanka and Pakistan. She is a three-time winner of the Bahrain Open,and she has also bagged the Kenyan Open and the South African open. In the domestic circuit,she has been a junior national champion and a three-time runner-up of the national championships.

Trupti feels that the level of badminton has gone down in the city. “When I was playing at the junior level,the level of competition was extremely tough. We used to struggle to make it into the state team. It is because of this that our skills improved further. Now,it is possible for a junior player to win a senior level tournament. There has been a dearth of international representatives from Pune in the men’s section. Given the superior infrastructure that Pune possesses,this should change fast.” Her solution to this problem is to hold more badminton coaching camps in places like the Shiv Chhatrapati Sports City,Balewadi,and in PYC to improve the skills of the youngsters. “The badminton courts at Balewadi are of global standard. Their facilities should be used to hone the skills of the budding shuttlers. The conditions at Balewadi are very similar to conditions abroad. Thus players practicing on such courts will not face any suprises when they play abroad.”

Regarding her immediate goals,she said,”I have the National Championships coming up in February. Following that is the World Championships,which will be held in Hyderabad this year. I am not too optimistic of my performance there as I have just recovered from a strenuous back injury which kept me out of action for five months. Hence my ranking has gone down. I am therefore working towards doing well at the Commonwealth Games in 2010.”

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