Pune Badminton << 30 years!

Pune – known for its culture, people, food, education, festivals and what not! However, very few know that the most popular individual sport played these days was born in our very own Pune way back in 1870 when it was first played by the British soldiers. Not only this, but the first rules of the game were formed in ‘Poona’ and hence the sport was called as ‘Poona Game’ until it was renamed as ‘Badminton’. Indeed, Pune has a long history when it comes to Badminton and has produced many players who have stamped their authority at various levels from District/State/Nationals and International. Pune has an Olympian as well! Isn’t that a proud moment for all of us?

I have been associated with Badminton in some or the other ways for almost 30 years now and have seen Pune Badminton from very close quarters. Today, when I look back, I feel immensely satisfied and proud that I saw a range of players who made Pune, Maharashtra and eventually India proud with their performances. I have in my small attempt tried to pen down all these players and their contribution from 1990-till date so that it can boost the confidence of not only the current junior and aspiring Badminton players, but their parents and coaches as well.  I hope by going through the performances and contribution of below players, it encourages and inspires more players to take up the sport professionally.

Before I write anything, I would sincerely like to offer my condolences over the loss of one of the finest coach and a human being from Pune, Mr. Vasant Gore sir, who was instrumental in producing many of the great players that I have mentioned below. He not only produced great players, however imparted the values of a good human being through Badminton in each of these players. We miss you Gore sir!

Nikhil Kanetkar

Nikhil Kanetkar won the junior boys title at the Pune District Badminton Championships while he was only 14 years old and then as they say, the rest is history!  My first memory of Nikhil is when he played in the Senior Nationals in Pune and won a few rounds while he was only 17! Later he shifted to Bangalore at the Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy to further enhance his skills. Soon he made his presence felt at the International level when he won Sri Lanka International in 1998 and thereafter represented India at all the prestigious tournaments for over a decade. It was in 2004, when Nikhil was qualified to represent India at the summer Olympics in Athens. Nikhil won the first round and lost against Peter Gade in pre-quarter finals. Nikhil remains the only Olympian from Pune till date! During his illustrious career with India, Nikhil was part of team India, which won the silver medal at the 1998 Commonwealth games and the Gold medal at the South Asian Games in 2006. Post his retirement in 2011, Nikhil started his own academy in Pune with a vision to produce more and more champions and eventually has produced Junior world no 3, Junior world no 8 and under 17 India no 1 till date apart from multiple junior district and state champions. Additionally, Nikhil has been a member of the Executive Council Committee of Maharashtra Badminton Association as an advisor to the president, which I believe is extremely beneficial to the sport since it is important to have the right people at the right places for the game to excel! In 2019, Nikhil was awarded with the prestigious Shree Shiv Chhatrapati Award for his contribution to Badminton as a Coach and also won the Times Men of the year award J

Manjusha Pavangadkar & Archana Deodhar 

Another name that has made Pune proud is Manjusha Pavangadkar! Manjusha won the National Championships 10 times in Women’s singles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles. Manjusha represented India for over 10 years and was a Silver medallist at the South Asian Games 2004 in the mixed doubles category.  Manjusha’s partner in the women’s doubles was also from Pune – Archana Deodhar and together they won 4 National titles! Manjusha and Archana also won the Bronze medal at the Commonwealth Games in Women’s team championships in Kuala Lumpur in 1998. Both these women also represented India at the Uber cup and World Championship tournaments as well, which are one of the most prestigious tournaments to be played in the circuit. Manjusha later shifted to Delhi post her marriage and started coaching there while Archana started her coaching stint in Pune and was coaching at the district and state level players. Soon Archana achieved a unique feat that no woman shuttler from Pune has ever achieved, when Archana was appointed as the National coach of the Women’s Badminton team in 2009. This has indeed been one of the proudest moments for Pune Badminton for sure J Both Manjusha and Archana are the recipients of the Shree Shiv Chhatrapati award for their contribution in Badminton.

Trupti Murgunde

Pune has produced more Women’s National champions than any other city in India and Trupti Murgunde is one such National Champion from Pune. Trupti started her Badminton training in Pune and eventually moved to Bangalore at the Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy. Trupti won the National title in 2010 and was the finalist thrice. On the International stage, Trupti was a bronze medallist at the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth games and won 5 Gold medals (3 women’s team, 2 Women’s singles) at the South Asian Games. Trupti also won 6 International Challenge/series during her decade long career for India. Post her retirement in 2012, Trupti has been playing the role of a commentator for various tournaments and was also associated with India TV as an expert for the 2016 Rio Olympics.

Hemant Hardikar

While I was growing up and had just started playing Badminton around 1990, one name that was constantly making headlines was Hemant Hardikar. Hemant sir, as he is fondly called after he picked up coaching since 2000, has won Pune District Championships title for the record 18 times during his playing days either as junior boy’s singles, men’s singles or men’s doubles. Hemant Hardikar has also represented India and achieved the 4^th place at the Senior Nationals.  Hemant Sir has been awarded with the prestigious Shree Shiv Chhatrapati award by Maharashtra Government for his contribution in Badminton. Later, when Hemant sir took the charge of Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy of Pune centre as the head coach, it was under his guidance that few of the players excelled at the highest level. Even today, when you enter the Modern Sport Complex in the evening, you will see the dedication, sincerity and calmness with which Hemant sir coaches the young players.

Ranjeet Natu

The Pune Badminton Metropolitan Secretary, Ranjeet Natu, was a very good doubles player in his junior days and topped the doubles rankings in 1991 when he won 3 major All India ranking tournaments with 3 different partners – Tushar Pai, Gurmukh Singh and Pullela Gopichand. The pair of Ranjeet Natu and Tushar Pai was formidable and was runner-up in the National Badminton championships in the junior boys category. His performance was instrumental in Pune University winning All India university tournament in Assam and later represented India at Teheran, Iran where India won the Gold medal. After finishing his playing days, Ranjeet has been a member of the Executive committee since 1997 and has been instrumental in all the administrative activities of PDMBA for many years where he was a treasurer between 2011-2015 and now a secretary since 2015. 

Aditi Mutatkar

The year 2000 was a special year for Pune as the legendary Prakash Padukone sir decided to have Pune as one of the centres of his academy and started the Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy in Pune. There were selection trials held and approx 15-20 raw talent was selected to be a part of the academy. Aditi, one of the selected players of the academy, is the only third Indian woman in India to be crowned as the National champion in U-13, U-16, U-19 and Women’s category. Her consistent performances in the junior category earned her a place in the Indian team that won the Bronze medal at the 2002 Kuala Lumpur Asian Junior Championships. Aditi was the member of the senior Indian team that won the Silver medal at the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games. Aditi achieved her highest world rank of 27 in Women’s singles in 2010 (this remains the highest ranking from a Pune girl on the International stage in the senior category till date) when she registered her career-best performance by reaching the finals of the Bitburger Open. Unfortunately, too many injuries at the wrong time cut short her International career and she had to retire from the game at a very early stage. Post her retirement, Aditi is full time working with a non profit Art of Play foundation to ensure that every child in India’s government schools has an opportunity to play. She is in-charge of curriculum design, assessment, fundraising, social media and lending student support programs.

Sayali Gokhale

Sayali Gokhale, I always felt, came from ‘Rahul Dravid school of Business’ and was extremely sincere and disciplined throughout her career. She had all the strokes in her armoury to execute them at the right time. Sayali is a 2 time National women’s champion and achieved this feat in 2009 and 2012. Sayali beat P V Sindhu in the 2012 Nationals in Srinagar to claim the title. Unfortunately the Senior National title has eluded Pune since then. Apart from this, Sayali won the Gold medal at the 2010 South Asian Games, Dhaka in the women’s singles and the team event and was also a member of the Indian women’s team that won the historic Bronze medal at the 2014 Uber Cup held in Delhi. Sayali announced her retirement in 2016 and since then has been coaching younger players at the Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy (where she was a player herself), Bangalore. Sayali has played a key role in the development of Lakshya Sen (World no 37), who has a great potential to be in the world’s top 10.

Neha Pandit

A chubby girl during her u-13 days and one would have never predicted that Neha would go that far with the kind of competition she had in her age group. Neha, another player from the Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy, kept on working hard and with her immense dedication and fitness, was able to produce the results that one should take a look at! In fact, Neha is still active in the senior circuit and has been practicing regularly while most of the players from her era have either retired or faded away. Neha, a runner-up in the 2012 National Badminton Championships, where she lost to P V Sindhu in the finals, has also been 3 times National Games medallist held in Guwahati, Ranchi and Kochi. She is also one of those players from Pune, who was ranked India no 1 for almost 3 years and was part of the Indian team as well. During her stint with India, Neha was a runner up in Spanish International Challenge, 2009 and Bahrain International Challenge in 2018. Neha is also the recipient of the Shree Shiv Chhatrapati Award for the year 2017-18.

Gayatri Vartak

 Now a renowned Sports Psychologist, Gayatri Vartak, a former International Badminton player from the Prakash Padukone academy, completed her M.Sc in Sports Psychology from UK and has been mentoring the top level athletes across various sports. A tall, lanky shuttler, Gayatri had a deceptive game and with height to her advantage was able to reach and return the shuttles at a very fast pace. Gayatri won the Sub-Junior National Championships and then was part of team India, where she played Asian Badminton Championships in the junior as well as the senior category along with participating in the prestigious Uber cup. Gayatri broke into the world’s top 100 in the women’s singles and was in the top 3 in the women’s singles event in the country as well. Gayatri started Samiksha Sports Psychology in 2011, which is India’s first Sports psychology consultancy and have offices in Pune, Mumbai and Bangalore.

Dhanya Nair

Dhanya, member of the Indian team that participated in World Championships, 2015 has been active in the circuit for a very long time. Dhanya started her coaching lessons from her mother Mrs. Pratibha Nair and then trained under various coaches during her junior days. She has won multiple silver and bronze medals at the various All India tournaments in the senior’s category and has represented India for over a decade in multiple tournaments where she has been a consistent performer. The year 2002 was a special year for Dhanya when she won the girls doubles in ICICI Bank All India tournament at Bangalore and followed that up with the win in All India tournament in Thane, Krishna Khetan All India tournament in Chennai and Sushant Chipalkatti memorial tournament in Pune. Dhanya remains the only player from Pune to have won 4 titles in the Maharashtra State selection tournament when she won a double crown in U-15 and U-19 category and later also won the Gold medal in the Kenya International tournament where she won in Singles as well as in doubles category in 2009. She is also a bronze medallist at the Asian Junior Badminton Championships held in Kuala Lumpur in 2002.Dhanya achieved her highest world ranking of 68 during this time. Dhanya has been a four time World Railways Champion in 2005, 2009, 2013, & 2017. Dhanya has been mentoring younger players at the ‘BadmintoNAIRe’ academy set up by her parents which has 6 International standard courts.

Purva Barve

Purva, former junior world no. 8, is a next generation player from Pune who has recently transitioned from Junior to the senior category and already has a vast experience of playing at an International level. Purva had a roller coaster 2017-18 when she won 5 junior International titles, viz – Italian, Israel (2), Cyprus and Croatian. She represented India at the Junior World Championships twice. Purva was part of the Indian team which won the Gold medal at the SAF games in 2018 and won an individual Gold medal as well. Purva also won a silver medal at the National Badminton Championships in 2018 and won a couple of All India Ranking tournaments. Purva, who has inherited Badminton from her family, is currently India no 7 in women’s singles and with years to come has an opportunity to top the ranking chart and represent India at the highest level.

Sushant Chipalkatti

A former promising Badminton player Sushant Chipalkatti started his career on a promising note and won District, State and National titles while he was only 12. Sushant was a school games gold medallist in 1994 and also won Krishna Khetan all India title in 1995. It was an extremely unfortunate event that Sushant met with an accident in 1996 and left us forever. However, in his memory, Sushant Chipalkatti memorial Badminton tournament was started in 1997. The tournament was organised at a state level initially, then as a National tournament and now it is an International tournament, giving a platform to many young aspiring Junior Badminton players to showcase their skills.



Sanyogita Ghorpade

Another young woman shuttler from Pune, who started her career as a singles as well as a doubles player, later chose to focus only on Doubles. Since then she has been a consistent performer on the circuit, winning many National titles and representing India at the World Championships, Uber cup and Asian team championships. She has been a runner-up at various International Challenge/Series tournaments and a 2 time senior National runner-up as well. Sanyogita shifted to Hyderabad at the Gopichand Badminton Academy however recurring injuries/surgeries forced her to leave Hyderabad and move to Pune where she has been training at the Nikhil Kanetkar Badminton Academy. Sanyogita, with her doubles expertise, has set up a good example for the aspiring shuttlers and players can certainly consider Doubles as an option from an early stage of their career and focus on getting better at it. Sanyogita too received the prestigious Shree Shiv Chhatrapati Award for her contribution in Badminton last year.

Ajit Umrani

I am sure many would agree with me, if Ajit had taken up Badminton professionally, he would have definitely been an asset to Indian Badminton. Ajit, I believe, has inborn talent and his game was so easy to watch for any novice Badminton player. However, there was a lot of hard work behind it as I witnessed the same since I was playing under the same coach where Ajit was training. Ajit won many titles at District and State level and was making his mark on the National level as well. However, as it turned out, Ajit chose academics over sport and after completing his engineering moved to U.S. for further studies. It is worth mentioning here that Ajit is a rank holder in S.S.C. as well as H.S.C. and was definitely the one we as kids looked up to during those days! Ajit didn’t stop his passion for Badminton in U.S. and won a whopping more than 25 National ranking events in Men’s singles, Doubles and Mixed Doubles. He was ranked as high as No 1 in men’s doubles and No 2 in the Men’s singles and also represented the USA in international events. Ajit became the USAB certified high performance coach and has coached the USA Jr. National team in a few of the International events. He was also involved in the Badminton Organizing Body (USAB) and worked as the coaching development chair for the east coast. Recently, Ajit won the silver medal as well in 35+ Men’s doubles Nationals and proved that age is just another number for him.

 Varun Khanwalkar & Sameer Bhagwat

This magical duo of Varun and Sameer were unbeatable in Pune District Badminton Championships in Men’s doubles category for many years and also represented Maharashtra the best doubles pair in the state. They had the perfect understanding and co-ordination amongst themselves on court. Varun was more attacking while Sameer was extremely fast at the nets and had the best defence in the game among other compatriots.  Varun played both Singles and doubles at the State and National level; however it was their doubles combination that looked more threatening when the duo was on the court. Both Varun and Sameer are now coaching youngsters and have quite a few talented players in their pool.

Nishad Dravid & Ajeet Phatak

Then there were players like Nishad Dravid, Ajeet Phatak who did well at the state as well National level during sub-junior and junior days and were the top ranked players from the city. Ajeet and Nishad in fact represented India at the Junior Asian Badminton championship, World championships and French open tournament between 2000-2002. However, they chose academics over professional Badminton and if they had also continued professional Badminton, they would have surely played for India at least for a couple of years.

All the players that I have mentioned above have left a legacy behind and it is important for the current generation players to understand and value the performances of all these players, especially because they all have come when there was very limited coaching opportunities and infrastructure as compared to what we have today and it was their hard work, sincerity and dedication that made this possible. Although Pune has produced more women National champions than any other city in India, it is a little disappointing fact that there has not been any National Champion from Pune in the Men’s category for a very long time now. It’s time now that we as sports lovers think about this and change the perspective towards looking at Badminton as just a hobby and start looking as a career option from an early age itself. Badminton and many other sports have changed and evolved over the years and there are lot of opportunities for making a good career out of it.  Government has been taking the right steps to ensure that the right platform is given at the right time and with the initiative of Khelo India, a lot of players have been benefitted already. Additionally, there are various leagues being conducted throughout the year for various sports and if you have played/understand the sport, there are opportunities to work with some of the best players in the game. Also, there are ample Government/private sector jobs/scholarships available as well if you excel and are consistent in performances for the most part of your playing days.

Let’s hope that with player’s like Purva Barve, Varun Kapur (Jr. world no 3), Tara Shah (U-15 Asian Silver medallist), Riya Habbu (U-17 India no. 1) and a lot other younger players, Pune Badminton is in safe hands and sooner or later we will definitely have more and more players representing India emerging from Pune.