National badminton coach Pullela Gopichand has his hands full with two women in the top-10 and eight men in the top-50. (EXPRESS PHOTO BY HARSHA VADLAMANI)

Pullela Gopichand's wards are increasingly reaching weekend rounds of tournaments, which makes it impossible for the national coach to be by different courts simultaneously. What should have been a pleasant headache is turning into a challenge, writes Shivani Naik.

"At times there is so much demand from players that he sits in their corner, that we joke that we should hire Rajinikanth, because only Rajini Sir can create a number of clones."

 Maqdoom Ahmed, Gopichand Academy, Hyderabad manager, on Pullela Gopichand.

The last time this thought of morphing into Rajini crossed Gopichand's mind was in the late '80s. A hot-headed teenager back then, Gopi was swayed so much by Thalaivar's superstardom and desi Super Man wonder-tricks that he wanted a moustache of his own.

Lately though  years after the Rajini fetish has subsided for Gopichand and the Boss has gone sci-fi, and moush-free with Enthiran's Chitti robot  those around the national badminton coach jest about how they wish the Tamil movie superstar could conjure a spell that would clone Gopichand.

Last Friday's line-up at the World Championships was what India's national badminton coach Gopichand had dreamt of and strived towards for the last ten years of his coaching.

Three of his wards  P Kashyap, Saina Nehwal and PV Sindhu  were due to feature in the quarterfinals at Guangzhou, an unprecedented number of Indians in contention. What should've been smugly satisfying, in fact, turned out to be a hugely stressful day for the Indian coach, with only Sindhu's late win and assured medal offsetting the disappointment of Kashyap and Saina's near-simultaneous losses on adjacent courts.

Three matches at the highest level of play demanded Gopichand's absolute attention that day, but the 40-year-old was left stranded on the sidelines, as he rushed between two courts and eventually had to bite back the disappointment of watching both Kashyap and Saina go down, the former from the brink of a medal.

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