Sai Vishnu Bags the Title in Debut Senior Tournament emulating the Path of his Father

Sai Vishnu Pullela is a 13-year-old Indian Badminton Player and son of the legendary badminton player and current National Chief Coach of the Indian Badminton Team, Gopichand Pullela. He endows amazing talent and techniques at such a tender age. Following the example of his prolific father who was once an All-England Champion, Sai Vishnu is all set to carve his niche in the sport. Gopichand’s son embraces the upcoming challenges and willingly putting efforts on the immense tasks he will encounter in his career.

The All India Senior Ranking Tournament was held in Hyderabad. Among the 578 shuttlers, who are enlisted for the qualifying rounds of the men’s singles, Sai Vishnu is one of them. This is among the two tournaments, which are held for the selection and trail for the Asian Games 2018. This is an important process to evaluate the number of entries received by each of the two tournaments. All the procedures are done by the Badminton Association of India.

This tournament will be the first of Sai Vishnu’s and it is quite different from the other tournaments he has appeared previously. Currently he has acquired the 1^st position in the doubles, with Pranav Rao Gandham, his partner and 3^rd position in the men’s singles.

Slaying at the First-Ever Senior Badminton Tournament

Vishu was combating his initial primary round against Sai Surya Narayana Pravee Borra, who is 10 years senior to him. Even though, Vishnu was playing his first qualifying, the teenager, smashed the opponent by 15-4, 15-6 in just a short span of 12 minutes and came through as a winner.

In the second qualifying round, he played against the 17-year-old player, Gautam Arora. When the first game is initiated, Vishnu was seen hunting the score of 11-14. Later, he balanced the score at 14-all but later the game was settled on 15-17. In the second game, the score was 14-15, which was drifted by Vishnu to 17-15, winning the second game. In the third game, he had an easy win with the points 15-11. He played tremendously in the second round and valiantly turned failure into success.

The third qualifying round was played between Vishnu and the 17-year-old Chirag Seth. This wasn’t an easy battle for the teenager and in the first game, he must compromise with the scores at 15-17. He accelerates the speed of his game and won the second round with a big difference of 15-6. In the tiebreaker, the opponent Chirag Seth was determined and lead by 8-4 which doubled the risk of Vishnu’s failure. The teenager was not afraid, and he went on to play and won six points progressively and had a lead by 10-8. Later in the third game, Vishnu whipped out the opponent by 15-12 and won the third qualifying round.

He was just one win away from the main draw of the Senior Ranking Tournament. However, the India’s No 3 in the Under-19 Category, Alap Mishra easily slashed out the winning chances of Vishnu by 15-11, 15-13 score.

Despite playing his first-ever senior ranking tournament, he has won three rounds back to back and made it worth an applause. His performance was impressive, and his playing techniques were eminent. At a very tender age, he has a tremendous quality of playing shots, flicks and jump smashes. He is a proficient and strategic player. He is already grabbing the national attention just like his elder sibling, Gayatri Gopichand, who is the India’s No 1, in the category of Under-17. In the last week, Gayatri made it to the semi-finals of the All-India senior’s ranking badminton tournament, held in Bengaluru.

Pullela family is rising and the kids are walking on the footsteps of their successful parents. We can blissful say that the future is bright for this family.