Badminton player Arundhati weds Arun Vishnu

Arundhati Pantawane and Arun Vishnu as they formed another ‘Indian badminton couple’ by tying the nuptial knot at the VCA Jamtha Club House on Saturday.

Ranchi National Games gold medallist Arundhati of Nagpur and Kerala’s multiple-time national doubles champion Arun were engaged at Calicut last year. Arundhati and Arun have been training together at the Hyderabad-based Gopichand Badminton Academy for nearly a decade now. They were going steady for the last several years before they decided to form a permanent ‘doubles pair’.

In India, there are already several examples of badminton players getting married to their practice partners. Pullela Gopichand married to former national champion PVV Laxmi, Uday Pawar to Sujatha, Madhumita Bisht to Vikram Singh, Sagar Chopda to Sayali Gokhale, Trupti Murgunde to Abhijeet Naimpally, to name the few.

And hold your breath, there are more coming. Expect a series of badminton couples in the years to come.

The Arundhati-Arun wedding took place in the morning, while reception was held in the evening. Several badminton players including national champion Rituparna Das, Tanvi Lad, Aditya Joshi, Shlok Ramchandran, Arun’s men’s doubles partner Alwyn Francis, Poorvisha Ram and many trainees of Gopichand Academy attended the wedding.

The wedding clashed with the opening of Premier Badminton League (PBL) which forced other Indian stars to miss their friend’s big day. Mentor of new couple and chief national coach Gopichand had come to Nagpur on Thursday but he had to leave for Mumbai on Friday for the PBL. Gopichand along with HS Prannoy, Sameer Verma, Kidambi Nandagopal, Sourabh Verma, K Maneesha and other top shuttlers wished Arundhati-Arun by flying to Nagpur but left next day to participate in the PBL.

The newly-wed couple will settle in Hyderabad and will continue to play competitive badminton for the next three-four years.