MUMBAI, SEPT 5: Sometime between February and June last year, Vincent Lobo sat back and worked out his priorities. His badminton career was not shaping up to expectations, though Vincent ranked among the top 10 men shuttlers. He had just lost to India No 1 Pullela Gopi Chand in the quarter-finals of the National championships at Hyderabad. He reckoned he could go no further.By June, Vincent had made up his mind. At the next tournament, the Grand Prix at CCI, Mumbai, he pulled out of the singles event and opted to play doubles. In hindsight, the decision was wise. In tandem with Jaseel Ismail, Vincent made it to the Indian squad within two months. Since then, Jaseel and he have become well-nigh invincible in the Indian circuit. They are now the country's highest-ranked doubles pair, having climbed to 55 in World rankings.``I am very happy with the decision. I found it difficult to cope with both events. Many people advised me to concentrate on doubles. Leroy D'Sa, my current coach, insisted I was abetter doubles player. It was a most valuable piece of advice.''At that time, the choice of Jaseel as a partner must have made little geographical sense. Jaseel was from Kerala, Vincent from Mumbai. They had to forge a virtual long-distance relationship. Vincent recalls, ``Once we decided to play together, Jaseel came down to Mumbai and we practised for 15 days ahead of the Grand Prix. We won the event, and that cemented our combination.''On Sunday, Vincent left for Kochi to put in a week's practice ahead of the Asian Badminton Championships (ABC), at Kuala Lumpur from September 13. They will be the only Indian pair at the prestigious event.Vincent and Jaseel have also been nominated to represent the country in the forthcoming European circuit, for which they qualified by winning the Gold Flake All-India Open recently. But the government is yet to give them the green signal.``All this international exposure has improved our game. Our attack is very good - I am comfortable at the net, Jaseel isexcellent from the back court. Defence is our weakness, and I have been practising with Leroy to iron out the defects.''Badminton players are known to have a bias towards singles. Ask them what they prefer and they are likely to say ``singles'' 10 times out of 10.Vincent is an exception. ``I enjoy playing doubles. It is more of a challenge, much faster. Doubles requires more skill than stamina. You are looking to create openings against two people instead of one.''Do we need a doubles centre?The Badminton Association of India has insisted that doubles has been India's weakness. Before the Commonwealth Championship last year, BAI executive president Prakash Padukone had stated in Mumbai that India needed a special foreign coach in doubles.BAI now have the services of Zhu Dong, a Chinese coach nominated by the International Badminton Federation (IBF). But surprisingly, India's top doubles pairs have not been able to benefit from Dong's presence.Firstly, the doubles players practise intheir respective cities, while Dong is based at SAI, Bangalore. The only time the players meet the coach is during National camps. During these sessions, communication problems (Dong does not speak English) has meant that the players have not benefited from his knowledge.Due to the absence of good doubles players in Bangalore, players in Kerala and Mumbai prefer to stay home, where they have better sparring partners. Would it be better to have a common centre for doubles, like the one for singles at Bangalore?PERFORMANCE GRAPH Jaseel and Vincent notched their best win at the French Open this year, when they beat the World No 37 from Finland They tested the World No 17 German pair at the All-England, before losing to them 13-15 in the deciding third game. Their performance prompted the German coach to say: ``We did not expect them to play so well.'' At the Commonwealth Games last year, they lost to the World No 1 Malaysian pair 5-15 6-15. Morten Frost Hansen, the Malaysiancoach told them that while they (Vincent and Jaseel) had a good game, they lacked international exposure.
