How a mind coach is helping Satwik in his quest for Olympic glory

New Delhi: Star shuttlers Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty enjoyed a glorious run in 2023, making them firm favourites for men's doubles badminton gold medal at the Paris Olympics.

The ace duo's storied season included a lot of firsts in Indian badminton: Asian Games gold, Asian Championships title, a Super 1000 title, and the world number one ranking.

Besides that, they also won super 500 and 300 crowns in Korea and Switzerland and had a runner-up finish at China Masters super 750.

Satwik and Chirag made a good start to the season, finishing second best at Malaysia Super 1000 last week, and a very important factor behind their success has been the mental toughness showed by them in extremely difficult situations.

For more than a year now, Satwik has been working with sport & performance psychologist Shree Advani, who is part of the panel of experts of Go Sports Foundation. Chirag, too, has a mind coach.

"I'm not there to tell him anything new. It's like gold. You cannot manufacture gold, you can only discover gold. I just helped him in that process of digging deep and finding his gold," Advani said during an interaction with PTI here on the sidelines of the India Open.

The partnership started on December 22, 2022 after the foundation convinced Satwik to take the offer. Soon, he flew down to Bangalore from Hyderabad during a weekend to meet Advani, and things clicked.

"We caught up, we spent about an hour and we clicked, and I think that magic between us hasn't stopped," said Advani, who is also currently working with doubles player Treesa Jolly and Shikha Gautam.

Satwik and Chirag were at their "lowest point" before their title-winning run. The duo couldn't manage a single win at the Sudirman Cup and bowed out in first rounds at Thailand and Singapore, something which affected their morale.

"I think it was before Indonesia, we had a long chat. He was just stressed about various things. He was trying to fit into and implement the team strategies that, they were collectively working on and he was struggling a bit," said Advani, who is also the elder brother of ace cueist Pankaj Advani.

"We didn't talk too much in terms of, okay, this is the problem and this is the solution. A lot of it was just him thinking out loud and how to then bring the conversation back to making him aware of his strengths and where he felt he was falling short, but actually wasn't.

"We've started changing the messaging that we have within and say, okay, first round loss, this means, something big is coming. We can take it most positively." The duo has scripted many a stunning turnaround. At Malaysia Open quarterfinals last year, Satwik and Chirag won the match after being down 17-21 10-17 against Chinese pair of Liu Yu Chen and Ou Xuan Yi.

Last week too, the Indians entered the finals at Kuala Lumpur with an eight-point burst in the third game from 14-20, to get past Korea's Seo Seung Jae and Kang Min Hyuk.

"He is one of the purest athletes I've ever met because he just wants to play. And someone like that is very dangerous. The moment you start thinking about winning, about all the things you can get from the sport, not experience, it goes downhill.

"He just wants to enjoy the game, and that's what I tap into and keep reinforcing it. The other day we were talking about, okay, let's say you win gold in Paris, then what? "In fact, that is the moment when an athlete can be completely lost because they feel they've reached the top of the mountain and what now? "But did you enjoy the journey all the way? Or you were just so hellbent on reaching there that you missed out on all the joy of playing the sport that you love? "So I talk not only about success, but after success because you cannot go anywhere further. So Asian Games win, World number one, everything, all at once, it's a lot to absorb."

The 23-year-old from Amalapuram in Andhra Pradesh is now at the most crucial point of his career with the Paris Olympics round the corner. The pair had missed out on a quarterfinal berth at Tokyo Games by a whisker.

"My objective is very clear that we are not here for Olympics. It may sound weird saying that. But we are here for overall progress and development. Olympics happens to be this year, the journey goes beyond that.

"We make the Olympics the largest thing but I want to think larger than that. The moment you start focusing everything on the Olympics, you're magnifying it. But, actually, Olympics is just to stop, that's all." Advani also believes that expectation is just a manifestation of the mind.

"There is hope but people who understand sport, they understand the unpredictability of it. The way I put it across to Satwik is you have to be clear that you just have the wishes, blessings and positive energy.

"But there's no such thing as expectation, expectation is only something the mind can give you, which can spoil your performance. So, remove this entire concept of expectation."