Jwala Gutta to set up a badminton academy in Hyderabad

Jwala Gutta, India’s best-ever women’s doubles shuttler, will start the Global Academy for Badminton (GAB) from next month in partnership with Knock-out Wellness Labs LLP, a sister company of Franchise India.

Jwala insisted that this doesn’t signal the end of her playing career. She will, however, be mentoring at the new Academy coming up in Kukatpally in the City.

“I am still enjoying as a player. Because there is a dip in my rankings I am not playing too many events. But, again you must remember that I have been playing in the seniors circuit for 18 years now. There has to be some break some day. And, I will tell you all when I am going to stop playing. But, certainly not now,” she said.

“The whole idea is to provide the players what I missed during my playing days. And, there will be no discrimination in training programmes. Equal focus will be given to both singles and doubles. You all know I have always been vocal about doubles being treated in an indifferent manner over the years. Essentially, we will ensure that there will be no scope for any complaints from any of the player,” the 33-year-old Jwala remarked here on Saturday.

“I have the best people with me –  coaches will be Arif Sir (Dronacharya S. M. Arif) and Goverdhan Reddy, former SAAP (Sports Authority of Andhra Pradesh) consolidated coach, who were part of the coaches panel which trained the likes of Saina Nehwal in her formative years at Lal Bahadur Stadium. They are experienced enough to guide me in realizing my goal of producing worldclass players,” she pointed out.

“It would be too early to say that the target will be to produce Olympians. The idea is to give a perfect platform for the young talent, who otherwise have been denied for different reasons,” Jwala said.

“The state-of-the art Academy will soon have it’s centres across India after the first one in Hyderabad. In Telangana State, we will scout talent in the districts by first seeing if there are enough badminton courts there and adopt them before taking the best young talent from there in the GAB here,” she said to a query, “It will be a Center of Excellence for sure.”

On many Academies already existing in the city including Gopi Chand Academy, Jwala said: “Let there be healthy competition. I respect Gopi’s achievements as a coach. But, there is nothing wrong in having more Academies for they mean more opportunities.”

Mohit Verma, co-owner of Knock Out Wellness, informed that Rs 25 crores would be invested initially as the whole objective is to give badminton a new direction in terms of coaching facilities and moulding young talent into champion players.