Indian shuttler Ashwini Ponnappa said on Wednesday that the reason for India’s poor performances in the mixed doubles badminton events is because of the male partner’s insistence to always ask the female team-mate to play in a fixed position.

“Indians don’t know mixed doubles. They do not understand it. The male Indian partner always asks his female partner to be at the net,” she told PTI.

During the recently concluded Premier Badminton League (PBL) 2016, Ashwini Ponnappa had partnered international doubles stars like Robert Blair and Joachim Fischer Nielsen in the mixed doubles event for her team Bengaluru Top Guns. She said that Blair and Nielsen helped her in learning new tricks and had flexible ideas about the playing position of their female partners.

“I have learnt a lot of mixed doubles trick from Robert and Fischer. Playing alongside them was extremely beneficial and helpful. I was lucky to have them as my Bengaluru Top Guns team-mates,” Ponnappa said, reported PTI.

“Fischer and Robert are flexible and they do not have a fixed position for the female partner. They ask me to play in positions in anticipation of rivals’ game plan,” she added.

Ponnappa and her mixed doubles partner Manu Attri had crashed out in the opening round of the Syed Modi International Badminton Championship at Lucknow on Wednesday.