Badminton News: The Malaysian badminton team may still be looking for a top coach to bolster their national team, but India moved quickly by bringing in a coach from Indonesia, Mulyo Handoyo.

Mulyo Handoyo, who is the famed Indonesian coach behind the success of Athens 2004 Olympic champion Taufik Hidayat, will start work as sole head coach at India’s new National Center of Excellence in Guwahati, Assam , according to the Times of India.

Mulyo Handoyo is not the only foreign coach, but the Badminton Association of India (BAI) has included two other foreign players – former All-England doubles champion Ivan Sozonov from Russia as doubles coach and Park Tae-sang from South Korea.

For Mulyo and Tae-sang, this is not their first mission in India.

During Mulyo’s year-long stint with India in 2017, Kidambi Srikanth became a real fear as he won four consecutive Super Series titles. He joined Singapore after resigning in early 2018.

Tae-sang guided PV Sindhu to win women’s singles bronze at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics but later parted ways with the player.

The presence of Sozonov, who won the 2016 All-England title alongside Vladimir Ivanov, should bolster the currently booming men’s doubles sector with a strong performance from Chirag Shetty-Satwiksairaj Rankireddy.

Guwahati Training Center is a new badminton hotspot in India as the state-of-the-art facility has 24 boarding badminton courts and can accommodate 3,000 spectators. The hotel also has a gym and a yoga center.

“BAI has big plans and this center of excellence and the appointment of these coaches – Mulyo, Sozonov and Park is the first step,” said BAI General Secretary Sanjay Mishra as quoted by TOI.

Two other notable centers are the Pullela Gopichand Badminton Academy in Hyderabad and the Padukone-Dravid Center for Sports Excellence in Bangalore.

Overall, Gopichand is still the main head coach for national singles while Denmark’s Mathias Boe will continue to lead men’s doubles with Chirag-Satwiksairaj as his main focus.

Article tags: Mulyo Handoyo, kidambi srikanth, India