Pullela Gopichand (Getty Images)

HYDERABAD: When Saina Nehwal was 23, an 18-year-old PV Sindhu had already won bronze at the World Championships.

Sindhu is now 24 but there is no sign of the next shuttler. When Saina and Sindhu were ruling the roost a bunch of men’s singles shuttlers created a sensation of sorts on the international circuit.

Who would step in to the shoes of these super stars?

Put this question to the chief coach of Indian badminton Pullela Gopichand , he has no answer and is worried that if the system continues like this we may not have the next Saina or Sindhu.

"I have tried to speak about this in the last few months little more openly than I have done in the past. The fact that today in Saina, Sindhu, Srikanth, Sai, Prannoy, Sourabh, Sameer, Kashyap we have a bunch of players and these names you heard in the last five to ten years...And there is whole generation behind them who are coming up," Gopichand said, expressing concern that we may not get good players in future.

"Unfortunately we have not invested in coaches. And all of them (Sindhu or Saina) would need time personally. We actually have a big vacuum in terms of producing coaches of quality and it's not a training programme issue, it's eco system issue. We need to work lot harder to bridge that gap," he added.

Gopi said that as of now there are dealing with this crisis by taking the support of foreign coaches. "We are taking the support of foreign coaches like Park, Kim, Flandy etc., and Indian coaches like Amresh, Siyadat, Pradnya, Vijaydeep helping them to deal with these issues...But these numbers need to be larger and we need whole bunch of people to train these world level athletes, sit behind them and be able to tell them a strategy against a Lin Dan," Gopichand said.

Apart from Gopichand’s Academy we have Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy where coaches like Vimal Kumar have been working with talents like Lakshya Sen . Vimal earlier worked with Saina as well.

Gopichand is of the opinion that while we are struggling to take care of the cream, what about dozens of other upcoming shuttlers. "This is only about the top cream. But there is whole bunch of juniors, sub-juniors, mini badminton players who are doing well and need support and that is very important. So I think it's a large issue we are facing. It's also our own doing because we have grown too fast and the infrastructure around us hasn't grown enough. It's a big problem we have and we need to sort it out. We need to talk about it and collectively find an answer," the Dronacharya said.

Gopi not happy with things happening around him?

It is learnt that the coach is not very happy with the way things are happening around him. He was more or less taken out of the junior development programme and the government and BAI have reduced their investment on the players.

Earlier, players from the top-50 are sent to tournaments but now that number has come down to top-30 rankings. Bright prospects like Lakshya Sen, Siril Verma and others have not got enough support or foreign tours.

The government is spending 90% of the amount only on the seniors and just 10% on the upcoming players. Ideally it should be 60% on seniors and 40% on juniors. This imbalance may hurt Indian badminton in future.

BAI identified 47 shuttlers as core group after selection tournaments but they have not been given enough exposure so far. The coach is worried about these and may be that is why he is not sure about the next Saina or Sindhu.

