Satwik-Chirag to get a foreign coach soon

HYDERABAD: The Indian duo of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty will soon get a foreign coach from Malaysia or Indonesia.
Satwik-Chirag's defeat to Malaysia's Aaron Chia and Wooi Yik Soh in the quarterfinals of the Paris Olympics had led to their coach Mathias Boe's resignation. Boe, a former Olympic medallist from Denmark, announced that he would not return to coaching in the near future.
Badminton Association of India (BAI) secretary Sanjay Mishra told TOI on Monday that applications have been sought for a foreign doubles coach."We have invited applications for a foreign doubles coach. We received a few applications from Malaysia, Indonesia and other countries. By the end of this month or early next month we will get a replacement for Mathias Boe," Mishra said and added that Indian doubles coaches are already working with the team.
"We have Indian coaches Arun Vishnu and Manu Attri working with the players," Mishra said.
BAI and the Sports Authority of India (SAI) have also reviewed the performance of the shuttlers at the Olympics.
"We have world class players like Satwik-Chirag, Sindhu, Lakshya and Prannoy. Though they did all that was required, results were not in our favour. Now we are planning for the future," Mishra said.
Officials from BAI, SAI and chief coach Pullela Gopichand have already met once and will have a few more meetings before finalising a road ahead.
Lakshya Sen is poised to take over from Prannoy and Kidambi Srikanth in men's singles. The likes of Priyanshu Rajawat and Kiran George have also been impressive of late, but the same cannot be said about women's singles.
However, BAI is making efforts to groom successors for Saina Nehwal and PV Sindhu. "We are preparing a strategy to groom teen shuttlers. We have a good pool like Anmol Kharb, Malvika Bansod, Ashmita Chaliha and Aakarshi Kashyap," Mishra said.
BAI and SAI are also planning to train all these players at one place. "We are having a series of meetings on how to help these players. One of the options is to have them train at one location but we are yet to decide," the secretary, who was also the coach of Indian junior team, said.