Pullela Gopichand : An Olympic medal boils down to having two good back-to-back matches

While everyone including Saina Nehwal has been fretting over the draw for the past few months, Gopichand placed less emphasis on the draw. He said, "I believe the draw doesn't matter so much if you are really looking for a medal. You might have an initial bad round or at the quarterfinals. So I am not worried about that.

“I know the preparation have been going well," reported PTI.

"The draw at the Olympics is a small draw. It is a 16-player draw and out of them are 2-3 are just continental entries. So it is really boiling down to 13 top players, which means if you really have one good round you are in with a medal chance already and any of the players can crack. I am just optimistic," he said.

"I have seen strange things happening in Olympics so we should just go with our preparation and a positive mind and if we have a small chance we should grab it," Gopichand added.

Speaking about the contingent and India's medal hopes, this time, he said, "We have a larger contingent this time. We have the men's doubles qualifying along with the women's doubles. We have Saina who has won a medal at London as an experienced player.

“We have K Srikanth and PV Sindhu who also have a decent chance. I believe it all boils down to having two good days and for the sort of pressure that Olympics brings, anything is possible."

Sindhu and Srikanth, however, have not been in the best of form recently, and Gopichand reasoned that the hectic Olympic qualification schedule played havoc with players' ability to readjust their games.

"The year of Olympic qualification is challenging because you don't get the time to rectify the mistakes because there is the pressure of defending points for qualification. But post the may qualification, Srikanth has played one event and reached the semifinals. So I am confident about him.

"Sindhu has been working hard. She has delivered in the past at big events such as World Championship and Asian Games and I am hoping she does well here," said the Dronacharya of Indian badminton.

Talking about the level of competition in men's and women's singles at the Rio Games, Gopichand said: "The men's singles competition has remained pretty much the same over the last four years. The best three will still be Lee Chong Wei, Lin Dan, and Chen Long.

"But the women's singles have moved primarily from the Chinese domination to a larger base of players who have won tournaments in the last few years with Carolina Marin, Ratchanok Intanon, Japanese and Koreans coming in.

"It is a much open field in women's but nonetheless, it boils down to two good back-to-back matches," he added.

Asked about Ratchanok, who has been in scintillating form with three Super Series wins this year, he said, "She has won three back to back tournaments and then she lost early in the next two events so all of them have been very inconsistent. So it very difficult to predict and it depends on the conditions we get there."