Hyderabad: Several Indian news outlets have recently published articles about two top coaches – Malaysia’s Tan Kim Her (men’s doubles) and Indonesia’s Mulyo Handoyo (men’s singles), are in the process of finalizing their appointment contracts with the Badminton Association of India (BAI), and could officially return to India at the end of December 2021.
Tan Kim Her, who was the main factor in the recent surge of Japan’s World No. 4 Takuro Hoki/Yugo Kobayashi, in which he guided the Japanese pair to win the 2021 Denmark Open, 2021 Indonesia Masters, and the 2021 BWF World Tour Finals within a period of one and a half month, was no stranger to the Indian badminton.
In 2015, Tan was appointed as an Indian men’s doubles coach before resigning in March 2019 and joining the Japanese team. During this first stint in India, Tan has developed Chirag Shetty/Satwiksairaj Rankireddy to become one of the world’s top men’s doubles pairs. Shetty/Rankireddy won the 2018 Commonwealth Games men’s doubles silver, and also played a huge factor in helping the Indian team to win the 2018 Commonwealth Games mixed team gold.
Meanwhile, Mulyo Handoyo who used to be the coach for Indonesia’s Athens Olympic gold medallist Taufik Hidayat was able to lead India’s Kidambi Srikanth to four Super Series titles, and one Super Series title by B Sai Praneeth in 2017.
“Mulyo and Tan Kim Her are among the few top names who applied for the posts after we advertised for it and BAI (Badminton Association of India) wants to avail their services as they have prior experience of working with our Indian players,” BAI secretary Ajay Singhania.
“Mulyo and Tan have been in the Indian set up so we are favoring them and we are hoping to get their services from the India Open in January. Of course, it is yet to be finalized as we are still discussing the details,” added Singhania.
“The contracts of all the coaches expire in December end, so we will have to seal the appointments by this month. Our chief coach Pullela Gopichand is discussing with the coaches on various issues such as salaries, accommodation, etc.”
When asked about why they did not consider former World No. 1 Mathias Boe of Denmark for the men’s doubles coach, Singhania said that due to the fact that BAI was looking for a full-time instead of a part-time coach.
“Boe is a good coach but he couldn’t commit to a full-time role, he wanted it more like a temporary basis which is something that couldn’t be worked out,” explained Singhania.
