Meet Tanisha Crasto, Indian badminton’s hellraiser

This “blast” included Shruti pushing Tanisha inadvertently as she tried tracking back using her partner”s stumbling figure to balance her turn, right when Tanisha was already tripping over her own feet. In a tense team event, with India’s big names having lost all their matches, tempers could’ve flared. The two women, 21 and 23 respectively – burst out laughing. As frothy luck would have it, the shuttle floated long, giving India the point.

“Honesty, I don’t take playing matches for India as pressure. I’m just happy to fight, so I never think of it as a burden of ‘Oh, I have to get a point for India…or else..’ I’m confident in my combinations. We discussed courts were slow, it would be long rallies, we just need to be in the game,” she adds, “have fun.” Fear is a waste of emotional energy for Tanisha, not worth the brain cells either.

The sheer work rate of playing both doubles – womens and mixed – is no stress either. “I’ve always done that in junior team events also. We didn’t have our A team, so we stepped in. I’m quite experienced,” she says after being onboarded by Reliance Foundation to their badminton fleet. It’s a statement that captures the Tanisha-story: at 21, she’s already been to the Olympics qualifying stompingly, and reached Top 20 of mixed doubles with two different partners. The perfect baton inheritor from Ashwini Ponappa, who played 13 straight days, two matches daily for India’s 2018 CWG team gold. “I’m very confident I can pull out two matches,” Tanisha declares.

She of course doesn’t win all. Mixed needs women players to move in front quickly and because she plays both (and generally plays every match like singles where she chases after every shuttle) Tanisha has had her share of obnoxious trolling when both players went for the same shutte, and looked silly and amateurish on court. But her bustling energy cannot be contained. Those mad dives where she leaps as if she’s on trampolines when it’s rock hard court? “All those scars on my body are proof that I’m having fun in the fight,” she says, and reckons everyone might well be proud of her commitment. More than once, Tanisha is on the floor, defending and sending back shuttles when sitting and even prone. “Oh, those just happen,” she giggles.

Tanisha started playing doubles (and fell in love with it) in Dubai from age 5, with her father playing at the club. “There weren’t too many academies back then in Dubai, and everyone mostly played doubles. Singles was never my calling,” she says explaining why she loves doubles: “It’s high-paced, a lot of blood rush in the brain, lot of teamwork and challenges are difficult.” It is also notoriously difficult to crack into the Top 10.

Mixed doubles demands a personality from its women – the fiery Jwala Gutta was India’s finest. It’s a direct, unrestrained confrontation with male power in the smash, and no one is under any illusion that the women of either side are not singled out and bombarded as the “weak links”. “Look, having a guy as partner and as opponent is hugely different. Their intensity and strength is much more than us. Initially I didn’t know how to handle that pressure, I’ll be honest. You stay in the present, get in the breathing, calm down, find solutions,” she adds.

Her go-to is to keep breathing deep, get in the zone, and drown out noise. Against Indonesia’s tall Gloria Widjaja who smashes from 7 feet at the net, Dhruv caught her on cross drives to make her bend. But Tanisha created a lot of openings after being 16-19 down at clutch. “I calmed down and went into the zone where I could see every shuttle clearly. Dhruv controls from the back, but I’m a great front court player capitalizing at the net,” Tanisha confidently says. The two have reached Top 20 after seriously starting out only in November, making them the only bright spot besides Treesa-Gayatri in these last few months of grim singles results. The duo had a good run to the German Open semis, but at Sudirman, they were the only ones that looked in form.

A lot of what Tanisha plays now and her temperament on court is directly taught by Ashwini, 13 years her senior. “Ashwini is just so super dedicated. But she also taught me to enjoy life, go out, experience life, take breaks from deep focus and to be calm on court,” she says. Win or lose, Ashwini always had a big smile on her face – as if she was enjoying the battle. That smile can really freak out opponents, Tanisha thinks, though it’s just her way to not let pressure turn debilitating. “So I listen to music, go out, I love shopping. It eases my stress. Just stepping out, going for a drive. It’s my time to regroup. Initially it was very tough to switch off from the game. But physiologically, psychologically it’s very important to tune out,” she says.

This going all in – completely switching out duality of battle, comes from her mother, Tulip. Working in logistics in Dubai, she told her husband to quit his job at Intel to accompany Tanisha to competitions. “Badminton was costly, but I couldn’t travel alone. My mother made the big sacrifice and took over full responsibility of running the house with long hours of job, and taking care of my sibling and the house. Never once did she say I should not pursue my dream,” Tanisha says of her mother, who was more inclined towards cricket and art & craft.

The Paris Olympics was traumatic for most Indian shuttlers as they went hungry after the dining areas ran out of food in early days. “But it was a superb experience,” Tanisha says. “My parents came to watch me. Village was not great due to issues with food by the time our matches were done. But then the Indian team sorted that out later bringing in cooks. But those sleeping pods for India were real cool,” she recalls, always upbeat about her circumstances, however dire.

When she moved to India’s national camp in Hyderabad at 16, and endured many lonely days, learning to be independent, Tanisha was pursuing single minded goal from the start. “I wanted to play for India. That’s it,” she says. She began winning everything in GCC countries, Kuwait, Bahrain and simultaneously lorded the junior circuit in India. “Winning medals in different countries gave me confidence and told me I’m capable of that level. There is a lot to learn, so much more,” she says, exuberant about the journey ahead and learning to stay calm.

Tanisha Crasto is quietly taming the tempest within her as she climbs the rankings ladder. But the fun, she knows, is when everyone else knows that she can unleash the fury and tempest at will, shushing the outside noise, so she can yell her heart out and raise proper hell for opponents.