New Delhi: Chief national coach Pullela Gopichand on Sunday questioned the standard of umpiring during the India Open badminton tournament, calling it inconsistent.
On Saturday, Indian men’s doubles pair of Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy were called twice for service fault by the umpire during their semifinal match against the Indonesian duo of Ricky Karandasuwardi and Angga Pratama, which they lost 12-21 17-21.
According to the new BWF rule which was implemented last year, ‘the whole of the shuttle shall be below 1.15 metres from the surface of the court at the instant of being hit by the server’s racket’.
“I think Sumeeth was unlucky yesterday. I think when umpires don’t call you in the entire week and they call you on a particular day, I think there’s something wrong with the standard of umpiring in terms of consistency”, he said.
Talking about the performance of the home shuttlers, Gopichand said: “Few of the Indians lost to each other so I would have liked them to play other opponents. The women’s doubles and men’s doubles did well.
P V Sindhu and Parupalli Kashyap signed off at the semifinals. Sindhu, in fact, had blown away four game points in the opening game to lose the semifinal match against China’s He Bingjiao in straight games. (PTI)
