BWF News

‘Greatest Year Ahead’ for Joshi

TEXT BY DIANNE PIERRE | BADMINTONPHOTO

Manasi Girishchandra Joshi, the reigning SL3 singles world champion, is looking forward to the upcoming Spanish Para Badminton International II 2022 in Vitoria next week and is brimming with confidence and anticipation after overcoming a small injury.

“I’m feeling extremely positive, physically and mentally for the first tournament of the year. Before that, I had played national events over Christmas but I developed some back issues due to the compensation related to my prosthetic usage, and I had to undergo a seven-day rehab,” said the 32-year-old, who spoke to BWF during her 35-hour journey from Hyderabad, India to Bilbao, Spain.

“I have become more focused. I have a physiotherapist now. I’ve also got a fitness trainer in my team along with my coach, and this is going to help me recover better. Her techniques and guidance are really helping me.”

Switching up her training to the Gopichand Badminton Academy has certainly brought about great improvement to Joshi’s training and mindset ahead of the 2022 Para badminton season.

Joshi has been training at the Gopichand Badminton Academy with able-bodied players.

“I’m training with able-bodied players at the academy where Gopichand has started a training programme for Para athletes. I was the only one at first, but now we have around 20 Para athletes. It’s a great change to see inclusivity having peers travelling or playing with you. When you see that in training, it impacts you a lot (positively).”

We last saw the Rajkot native shine bright at the Uganda Para Badminton International 2021, bringing back three medals – gold in women’s singles and SL3-SU5 mixed doubles with Ruthick Ragupathi and bronze with Shanthiya Viswanathan.

“My wins in Uganda give me a lot of confidence as I head to Spain,” said Joshi.

“I’m in one of the best forms of my life and a lot of changes have happened in my game. I have a new partnership with Ruthick and Shanthiya. The three of us are training together at the academy, we are all very positive.”