The Hindu : Sport / Olympic Games : Another blow to the Indian contingent

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Aug 18, 2004

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Sport - Olympic Games

Another blow to the Indian contingent

By Our Special Correspondent

ATHENS, AUG. 17. Nikhil Kanetkar gave a good account of himself before losing to sixth-seeded Peter Gade of Denmark 10-15, 6-15 in the second round of the men's badminton event at the Goudi Hall here on Tuesday.

The 25-year-old Pune lad recovered from being down 4-10 in the first game to be on par at 10-10 but failed to capitalise on the situation. Gade did show his class, but there were opportunities for the Indian left-hander to apply the pressure on the opponent.

Coach Vimal Kumar aptly summed up the fare by saying that the Indian players needed to take the next step. "Nikhil has the ability to trouble these players at the top. But he needs to do a little more to be able to beat them. There is not much difference in the game of our guys, but they have to convert those `well-played' to wins," Vimal said.

Earlier on Monday night, Abhinn Shyam lost 12-15, 0-15 to Park Tae Sang of Korea. Recalling Abhinn's first round match, Vimal said that the 24-year-old had made the mistake of not keeping the shuttle back, as the Korean was tired by the second game.

"Abhinn was worried about the shuttles going out and thus made the mistake of playing to the Korean's strength. The idea should have been to push the Korean back, so that Abhinn would have had the chance to play his game," Vimal said.

The Indian coach said that it was the top players who were under pressure, and the Indians should have played a lot more freely, so that they could have at least played to their potential.

"All our three players have a lot of international exposure. We do need to increase the intensity of our training sessions, but it is time that we broke into the next level," said Vimal, after Nikhil's match that lasted 43 minutes.

The only Indian woman player, Aparna Popat had lost in the second round to fourth-seeded Mia Audina of the Netherlands in three games.

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