BENGALURU Sunday 6 July 2008
DC
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TRIVIA: Renowned singer Julio Iglesias, father of Enrique Iglesias, played as goalkeeper for Real Madrid reserves in his youth. However, after a car crash at 19 put him in a wheelchair for the next two years, he started learning to sing and the rest is history.
sport
‘A great
LEARNING
experience’
England’s top-ranked shuttler Rajiv Ouseph during a practice session at the Tata Padukone academy on Friday. PHOTOGRAPHS BY B. SATHISH
England’s No. 1 player Rajiv Ouseph, hailing from a family of shuttlers holds forth on his passion for the sport
BY MAXIN MATHEW BENGALURU
H
e may appear to be a shy, demure person but when he takes to the court, his racquet does the talking. Meet Rajiv Ouseph, England’s top-ranked badminton player who has taken the sport to sublime heights — something that his fellow countrymen are yet to achieve. Having roots in Thrissur, Kerala,
Rajiv’s tryst with the sport has been a joy ride. “I fell for badminton when I was nine, though I love watching football,” said this Liverpool fan. His father Joe, who works for a defence company, plays club badminton while Rajiv’s sisters — Rajani and Reshmi — have played at the county level. “There is great passion for the sport in my family. My parents used to take us to the All-England badminton tournaments to watch world-class players in action and
on the game and improve his rankings. “I need to improve on my performance. Of late, I had to play higher ranked shuttlers and highstandard matches, especially at the Super Series. I have some tourneys in Japan and China coming up and I need to perform well,” the World No. 52 said. At 10, Rajiv won the singles and doubles titles in his first international event in Holland. The fact that he clinched the singles, doubles and mixed doubles titles during the under-15 national championships in 2000 showed that he was cut out for stardom. The most prized triumph, however, was when he triumphed in the 2005 European Junior Champion-ships in Holland, becoming the first Englishman to win the title in 20 years. “I played withlented out losing a game and I was India has ta hardly aware of the record p u n as A I broke. It was a great players such r moment for me for achieva w a P d n a n A r, ing something that big,” a h id r S d he said. n a n A n So how does he rate the and Cheta ey h Indian threat on the badT . s r e th o minton circuit? “Quite among impressive,” Rajiv said. n e e b have “India has talented playll e w e it ers such as Anup Sriu q g in perform dhar, Anand Pawar and tional a n Chetan Anand among r te in e th on others. They have been h g u n be to a performing quite well c d n a it u c cir on the international e r tu fu in s ie circuit and can be r a s r e adv tough adversaries in future,” he added. At present training at the Tata Padukone badminton academy here, Rajiv is honing his game especially for the slowly we started following the 2012 London Olympics. “It’s been sport with interest,” he added. a great learning experience. I get Born and brought up in Feltham, to spar with Anup, Anand and London, the 21-year-old shuttler Arvind Bhat. Tom (John), Prakash of Indian origin trains at the Padukone and Vimal Kumar are National Badminton Centre in here and the quality of training Milton Keynes and is pursuing given is far better than I can get media and communications from anywhere else,” he said. Loughborough University, known “It’s unfortunate that I couldn’t for producing world-class make it the Olympics this year but sportspersons such as Sunil I’m working hard for the 2012 Gavaskar, Paula Radcliffe and Games. Making it to the British Sebastian Coe. team means everything to me and Currently, Rajiv has taken a would be a big honour for my break from studies to concentrate country if I could do so,” he added.