Badminton: Car for singles, meager cash for doubles

Chennai: The doubles issue in badminton is on the front burner — again. The decision of the Assam Badminton Association to award cars to singles winners at the junior national championship in Guwahati earlier this week and ignore the doubles winners has predictably kicked up a storm.

Even as the singles champions walked away with brand new Maruti Alto cars, the doubles winners had to be content with Rs 26,000 per player!

Incidentally, the Assam unit’s president Himanta Biswa Sarma is also the interim boss of the Badminton Association of India. So the disparity, or the injustice as claimed by a slew of doubles specialists, happened with the knowledge of the BAI president. Not surprisingly, doubles crusader Jwala Gutta is leading a frontal attack against the federation.

Ashwini Ponappa, former world championship bronze medallist in doubles, didn’t mince words either. “Equal treatment and encouragement would definitely help in getting better performances in all events as opposed to just 1 or 2 events,” she tweeted.

The Karnataka player bemoaned the branding of doubles players as whiners in another tweet: “When one does voice their concerns they are sadly labelled as cribbers, or that they lack performance & only talk & want to start trouble.”

The disparity is an Indian phenomenon as reigning European doubles champion Chris Adcock, who is in Chennai for the Premier Badminton League, said there is no discrimination between the two formats in other parts of the world.

“I strongly feel that singles and doubles players should be treated equally in all matters including prize money.

“Doubles players work as hard as those who ply their trade in singles. I have absolutely no regrets as a doubles player because there is no discrimination in all the events approved by the Badminton World Federation everywhere,” he added.

The lack of support from singles icons isn’t helping the cause of doubles either.

For instance, Olympic silver medallist P.V. Sindhu, Adcock’s team-mate at Chennai Smashers, had all this to say when she was asked about the way singles and doubles champions were treated at the junior national championship: “I don’t want to comment on it.”

Unless the Sindhus, Sainas and Srikanths speak up, there is clearly no light at the end of the tunnel for doubles players.