We have a long way to go — Gopi

The Toulouse Open winner, and French, German Open finalist acknowledged the matches in the final round were not going to be easy. “We have to go all out to come out well in the finals,” he said. “We have a balanced team, and I believe we can perform well.”

Is there any area where he would like to see improvement? “In doubles, we have to perform much better than what we have done in the qualifiers. The win in the doubles takes much of the pressure off the singles player. Depending on singles alone will not give us the favourable result,” he said.

He said there was no concrete preparatory plans for the Thomas Cup final round. “Ideally, we would like to have a week’s break after the hectic tournament. But now, we are playing this Nationals and after this, some of us would go for the European tour. I don’t think any dates are set for the camp before the finals. But probably, we will have a three-week camp before we leave for Malaysia,” he said.

He declined to speculate on India’s chances in the finals. “I cannot speculate sitting here. But I have confidence that we would do well. If we play our best, we can finish one of the top five teams. We have beaten England earlier and we have a good chance against Sweden and who knows when a team would break under pressure. But I would not speculate on the final standings,” he said.

Now ranked 36th in the world, Gopi hoped to improve upon his rankings with his coming European tour where he would play in the All-England and French Open. He said he would like to be in the top 15 in the world rankings.