Tokyo-Bound Sai Praneeth Believes He Holds An Advantage In Olympics Debut
NDTV
B Sai Praneeth, India's sole men's singles badminton player in the Tokyo Olympics, believes he has an advantage going into the Games.
Bhamidipati Sai Praneeth, India's sole men's singles representative in Badminton at Tokyo 2020, is confident ahead of his Olympic debut as the 28-year-old shuttler believes he holds an advantage going into the showpiece event. Praneeth has maintained his World No. 15 rankings to qualify for his first-ever Olympics. No men's singles player from India has ever progressed further than the quarter-final at the Olympics but the Arjuna Awardee has set his sights on ending that drought soon as he hopes to return home with a medal. "Nobody knows how people are playing and how everybody is practicing or in which area they are improving. It is something which is [the same for] everybody. It's a new way of playing tournaments, more so an Olympics and top players will definitely be under pressure. So I hope it will be a good thing for me," Praneeth said in a video posted by Olympics.com. "I think for them it is not easy because they don't know how they are playing. When you see [a player] in practice everything seems fine. Only when you play tournament will you know how good you are playing or how bad you are playing. I think definitely, it will have an impact and I feel this could be an advantage for me," he pointed. Praneeth feels he is in good shape by playing in 4 tournaments this year. However, cancelled tournaments saw former World No 1 Srikanth Kidambi missing the Olympic Qualification cut but he is now helping Praneeth to prepare for his Olympic debut.More Related News