Indian badminton has always been about Saina Nehwal and she has been synonymous to the game, but then star doubles player Jwala Gutta feels otherwise and said that the sport is not all about the London Olympics bronze medallist.<\/p>\n
\u201cDoubles players have done well for India, but have always been discriminated against. Just because Saina (Nehwal) is under national coach (Pullela) Gopichand, that does not make her the ONLY face of Indian badminton. Earlier, there was Prakash (Padukone), then Gopi and now it\u2019s Saina,\u201d Jwala was quoted in a report by Mid-Day<\/strong>.<\/p>\n \u201cApart from her though, right now, there are doubles players like myself, V Diju, Ashwini (Ponnappa), etc who have helped gain recognition for the sport and country. Diju and myself qualified for the Olympics, something that never happened before. So, this change in Indian badminton is a collective effort,\u201d said Gutta, who will have World No 3 Saina, London Games men\u2019s singles quarter-finalist Parupalli Kashyap, her world championship bronze medal-winning partner Ashwini and rising star PV Sindhu for company as IBL\u2019s icon players,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n Gutta who has been vocal in the Prajakta harassment case and let out her support in the favour of the player said that even though she voiced out her concern in the case, she does not hold any personal grudge against national coach Pullela Gopichand.<\/p>\n \u201cI am not taking sides here, nor do I have any personal grudge against Gopi. My only question is that he being the national coach, who also runs a private academy, does that not bring about a conflict of interest? And I want the authorities to answer my question.\u201d Gutta is ranked 21 in the world doubles charts despite the fact that she has taken a break after the London Games,\u201d the report further quoted her as saying.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Indian badminton has always been about Saina Nehwal and she has been synonymous to the game, but then star doubles player Jwala Gutta feels otherwise and said that the sport is not all about the London Olympics bronze medallist. \u201cDoubles players have done well for India, but have always been discriminated against. Just because Saina […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-from-the-newspapers"],"yoast_head":"\n