Pranavi Reveals The Inspirations Behind Her Passion For Badminton

By RJ Mitchell

As our emerging talent continues to flourish and prosper both domestically and internationally Badminton Scotland is delighted to turn the spotlight on Pranavi Singh.

The 15-year-old started her badminton odyssey as an eight year-old playing with her brother at the Scotstoun Badminton Club for fun.

But inspired by the passion of her older brother Pratyush for our sport, Pranavi soon began to realise that her enthusiasm for badminton went beyond a casual interest and so started learning the sport under Josh Neil.

Enlisting at the School of Sport in S1 the Covid pandemic disrupted Pranavi’s rise but after returning to India with her family for an interlude the teenager was delighted to find her place was kept open and was soon back in the swing of things.

At just 15 Pranavi has already won her first senior title at the Babolat Dunfermline Championships in January this year while she was beaten finalist in Under-19 finals while the Pollok resident is also increasingly making her presence felt on forays South of the border.

Inspiration:

A keen student of the game Pranavi has now also revealed that she takes inspiration from the peerless play of Korea’s World No.1 AN Se Young as she continues to develop her skills apace: “I just love watching badminton and I watch all the BWF events and I went to the All England last year and I just get quite inspired by watching some of the top women players.

“AN Se Young, TAI Tzu Ying, I love watching them. I just love how disciplined AN Se Young is, her racket skills are amazing and she is always so focussed and is so elegant when she plays.

“She is just really inspirational and I feel like I learn so much when I watch her and the other top players.

“Also I was just so inspired to see Kirsty Gilmour play at the Europeans last month for Scotland and I’d definitely love to play for Scotland one day.”

While Pranavi continues to work hard with Performance Coach Alan McIlvain she also benefits from advice from her RPS coaches (Ciar and Andy) and was keen to namecheck them to underline her gratitude.

Improving All The Time:

Already ranked at No.7 in the Scottish Women’s singles rankings Pranavi said: “I’ve been getting a lot of advice from Alan which is very helpful and pays attention to the physical part of my game while also giving me a lot of good advice.

“We have been speaking with Alan on what to do to get fitter and just doing more running, weights and agility and kinds of stuff like that to help improve my overall performance.

“But I really love the winning feeling and just competing in general. Early on I realised I was quite competitive and it has all just grown from there.

“But Alan is so helpful and coaches me really well for technical stuff while being in the RPS is great too and that has been a big help.”

Returning to India:

During the Covid Pandemic Pranavi and her family had to return to India to help look after elderly relatives but while she was there the young badminton star continued to train and her thoughts on the difference in methodology is interesting.

The Scotland Under-17 ranked singles player said: “It was really warm in India and they are more based on cardio stuff like running and much more endurance orientated, so when I came back I just felt really fit, my speed was good.

“Back in Scotland it is much more about technique, footwork and position, so it was interesting how things were a little different but I think all of that was good for me.”

Growing Momentum:

No wonder then that Pranavi is building a growing momentum that has already registered impressive results as she reflected: “At the Babolat Dunfermline Championships recently I had some really good games and they gave me so much more experience but I think these matches also showed I need to work on my tactical game,” she said.

Pranavi continued: “I played Katrina Chan in the final, I felt like I was the under – dog but I stayed disciplined and I was able to keep up in the rallies and it was a very close game and I just managed to win the big points.

“My consistency was good but maybe it was good because I was younger than Katrina and maybe the pressure was on her where I was just thinking this is a great experience for me and I just have to play the best I can.

“So that all may be worked in my favour and I managed to get the win.”

But while victories are sweet you learn more from defeats, none of which impressively, pardon the pun, is lost on Pranavi after a recent set-back in the final of the Under-19s: “I was just very inconsistent on that day but also my endurance was not as good as Vibha’s (Raman) also I’d played a three setter with Katrina (Chan) and before that another match and I was pretty tired after these games and Vibha lasted longer.

“So I need to improve on my endurance and that is something I am working on.”

Next Up:

While school exams loom large, Pranavi is also excited about the prospect of seeing how her game will stack up against continental opposition as the year unfolds and she said: “I’m going to focus more on European international tournaments and I have a Gold Star in England coming up.

“I’ve played a few down South and I won a Gold last year and I went to Milton Keynes in the under-17 Gold Star in February and made the semis, so we will see how all of that goes.”