Anup Sridhar

Injury

2008-11-18T04:02:00.000-08:00

About 10 days before I was set to leave for Beijing, during a regular practice session, I twisted my right ankle while attempting to reach for a shuttle in the front right corner of the court. I was taken to Manipal hospital immediately, and on doing an MRI scan I was told that I had partially ruptured 2 of my ankle ligaments.
I had torn the plantar fascia (arch) in my left foot earlier in the year in March, but that was not a very serious injury and it only kept me out of practice and competition for about 4 weeks. This injury that I had in my ankle, though is pretty much the first real injury that I've had. As I was to leave for Beijing, I figured out some temporary solutions, like taping my right leg from the foot to just below the knee, to compeltely take away any pressure on the ankle. While in Beijing, I also took a cortisone injection in 2 spots in the ankle. A cortisone shot, while it can give temporary relief, is best avoided as it delays complete recovery of the injured area. It only blocks out the pain, it does'nt heal the injury. But since I was in the Olympics, I went ahead with the injection anyway.
Its been 3 months now since I returned from Beijing and I am still not fully healed. I still cannot stretch my right ankle as much as the left. On returning from Beijing, I consulted a couple of doctors and got a schedule of what to do (rest, strengthening etc) but when that did'nt work, I consulted a doctor in Bombay who has put me on a 6 week rehabilitation program. I am 3 weeks through the program as of now and am feeling much better. I feel like this time I am following the right kind of rehab program, even if it ends up taking a bit more time.
Its been very hard for me to skip tournament after tournament,specially since in the last 3 years or so, I have not been away from competition or training for more than a week. I've got so used to travelling around countries,competing, training hard, pushing myself to my physical limits, that I hardly know what to do with all this free time. I'd bought a flat a few months ago and renovating the flat has kept me reasonably busy, but also very stressed out :-)
I've read a lot about athletes who get injured, have a rough time in rehab, but end up coming through it stronger than before. In my case, while I know that I still have a long way to go before I'm competely fit and back on top in the rankings, I feel like I'm realising for the first time how much I love playing badminton. I've always enjoyed playing, of course, but I can feel now that its more than just a career, a job. Its what I was meant to do. And I know that once I am back playing, I will be better than I ever was before.
I'm grateful for all the e-mails wishing me a quick recovery. Its really nice to read messages of support, thanks guys!

A hard pill to swallow

2008-10-17T08:31:00.000-07:00

September 4, 2008:
AS SOME of you may know, I just returned from the Olympics a couple of weeks ago. Though I personally did not do as well as I had hoped, it was still a great experience, to watch so many athletes from so many different sports, all very focused on giving their best in their respective events, quite incomparable with any other event that I have been part of so far in my career.

The Olympics comes only once every four years, so everyone wants to plan well, train hard and generally be in the best possible shape for it. I had hired Tom John as a personal travelling coach from March to August to give me a little bit more push in my preparation for Beijing. I felt like I had been stagnating a bit and wanted to see if working with Tom could give me that extra something that you always need. I felt like the six months went quite well, a couple of injuries notwithstanding. I improved a lot in the physical conditioning department and felt very strong on court.

On arriving at Beijing, I expected to see everything organized perfectly, with maximum efficiency, and I was not surprised that it was exactly like that. From the pick up at the airport, to the check-in at the athletes’ village, everything went fine. On the way to the village, I saw the Bird’s Nest athletics stadium and the Water Cube aquatic centre. I thought both looked amazing but I personally preferred the Water Cube, which looked amazing, especially at night. The volunteers were extremely friendly and helpful, and the accommodation at the village was also superb.

The Indian contingent was staying in the block A-1. It was nice to meet Indians from other sports. It was a really good sign to see that everyone was there to put up their best performance and not just to be a participant.

I was having trouble with my ankle, so I decided to skip the opening ceremony because it would have involved a lot of standing and walking, and while that would not be a problem, I just wanted to avoid any unnecessary strain, especially since I was playing the next day. As far as my matches went, I prepared for them as I would in any other tournament. I got through the first one okay, but I was quite disappointed with the loss to Shoji Sato in the second round. I felt like I didn’t start off very well, and was always struggling to find some rhythm, and never really got going. It’s going to be a tough pill to swallow, to accept that I came away from Beijing without playing my best, which I’d promised to do. When you’ve seen yourself do something in your head so many times, and it doesn’t happen, I guess it takes a while to get over.

When we heard that Abhinav Bindra had won gold in his event, it gave us such a big boost. Just knowing that he’d done so well made us feel like we could as well. Everyone was very happy of course, and we had a small printout congratulating him stuck on our IOA office door.

Another worthwhile thing to talk about was Saina Nehwal’s run to the quarters. She has been an inspiration to all of us in the last few years. She got through a couple of rounds before beating Wang Chen in a very good match. Unfortunately, she missed out in the quarters after being up by quite a bit, but it’s hard to think what she had done wrong. Her opponent Yulianti played unbelievably to get through that match.

To wrap up, I think being in such an event lets you know where you are in comparison with everyone else in the world, and how hard you need to work to get to their level. I think the way the Chinese went about their business, in every sport, was fantastic. I hope we are able to put up a good show in Delhi in two years’ time at the Commonwealth Games. All of us athletes are working very hard towards ensuring a good result. I hope our administrators and officials do the same and organise a great event.

My Matches at the Beijing Olympics

2008-09-23T20:58:00.000-07:00

Road to Beijing - event preparation - video log 2

2008-07-30T03:21:00.000-07:00

Road to Beijing - normal training session - video log 1

2008-07-26T23:23:00.000-07:00

Working with Tom John

2008-05-21T23:03:00.000-07:00

AS some of you may know, I’ve hired a personal coach, Tom John, for six months leading up to the Olympics. I’ve been working with him for a little over two months now. The official list of qualifiers for the Olympics is out and I’m on it, so we’re training and looking to peak at the Olympics.

I’d been thinking about hiring a personal coach for a while now. I felt that since the World Championships last August, I hadn’t really continued on the same path and was beginning to stagnate. There were, of course, some things that were out of my control, like the injury to my foot, which started to get really bad around September/October last year. But I still felt like I needed to shake things up a bit and try something different. I had a couple of people in mind who I wanted to work with. Of course, ideally I would have either Prakash Padukone or Vimal Kumar travel with me, but since they have to take care of the academy, that wasn’t a possibility. I’d talked to Jim Laugesen, a former player from Denmark, about the possibility of training with him and he was quite keen on it. I’d also worked with Tom John over brief periods some years ago and I thought he could also help me. In the end, I went with Tom John because I needed to be based in India in this period leading up to the Olympics and he was better suited to Indian conditions, having been in India many times in the past.

We had a mixed sort of start as a team. I had an ordinary German and All England Open but was beginning to play better and better towards the end of my stay at the All England. As it turned out, I beat Shoji Sato of Japan in the first round in the Swiss Open. I did’nt start out very well and was down 14-19 in the first. I was able to really raise my level from then on and equalised at 19-19. He got a net cord at that stage and went up to 20-19 but I was feeling quite good having won a few points in a row and I went on to win the game at 22-20. I dropped the second game but recovered in time to take the third.

I felt good about my next round against Taufik as I’d beaten him the last time we played. But I got injured in the first game itself. It felt quite strange, I’d never been injured before and one moment I was playing and the next I felt and heard a loud snap in my left foot. I couldn’t put my foot down at all after that and had to concede. I had a strange plane ride back to Bangalore on a wheelchair, and crutches where there was no ramp for the wheelchair.

Since recovering from the injury, I’ve mostly been doing weight training for the upper body and a lot of cycling since I didn’t want to risk injuring the foot further. I’ve been amazed at how without running or playing Tom has managed to keep me fit through the last few weeks. I’ve just started to play again and I feel a bit stronger and fitter. It’ll take a couple more weeks before the physical work that I’ve done is translated to the court but when it does, I’ll be better than before.

So, as of now, the plan is to work more on physical conditioning for the next two weeks or so and then get on to more on court work. I’ll write another update in a few weeks’ time :)

-Anup

Anup Sridhar ranked career-high No. 24 in the World

2008-03-21T07:20:00.000-07:00

According to the latest world rankings released by BWF yesterday, Anup Sridhar contiues to be the top Indian player at No. 24 (34342 points). Anup shot up 5 places from last week thanks to his performance at the Swiss Open. Prior to this Anup had reached No. 25 in November last year.

Click here to check the world rankings.

Anup Sridhar engages veteran badminton coach Tom John

2008-03-21T06:58:00.000-07:00

Anup Sridhar, India's top badminton player, has recently signed on veteran badminton coach Tom John as his personal traveling coach. John comes with over two decades of coaching experience in the UK and on international badminton circuits ...

Click here for the official press release.

Wilson Swiss Open Super Series 2008

2008-03-21T06:54:00.000-07:00

In the first round, Anup Sridhar, the lone Indian male in the main draw, beat World No. 17 Shoji Sato from Japan. Anup now leads the Head-to-head 3:2.

In the first game, Anup trailed 14-19 at one stage but came back strong to win five points in succession, when it mattered most, to level the game at 19-19. The momentum was clearly in Anup's favor at that point and he went on to wrap up the first game 22-20. In the second game, Shoji got the early momentum on his side, by winning the first five points, and used that to wrap up the game 13-21. In the decider, the tables turned and Anup got the early momentum. He used it to stay well ahead of Shoji throughout the game and eventually wrapped up the game and match 21-14.

In the second round, Anup Sridhar (29) played World No. 7 Taufik Hidayat. Twelve minutes into the first game, with the score reading 11-9 in Taufik's favor, Anup injured his foot and was forced to retire.

Anup’s next tournament is the India Open Grand Prix Gold at Hyderabad from 1-6th April.

Yonex All England Super Series 2008

2008-03-10T07:46:00.000-07:00

Anup Sridhar, World No. 26 and the only Indian male in the main draw, played Dan Lin, the World No. 1 from China, in the first round of the Yonex All England Open Super Series 2008. Anup started off well winning the first game 21-16, but then Lin Dan came back strong to take the next two games 21-8 21-11.

Anup feels he is getting closer and is optimistic of beating Dan Lin soon. Anup has good reason to feel that way as he was the only player, other than Jin Chen who beat Dan Lin in the finals, to take a game off Dan Lin.

Anup's next tournament is the Wilson Swiss Open Super Series 2008, which begins tomorrow. Anup is again the only Indian male in the main draw and plays World No. 17 Shoji Sato from Japan in the first round.

Yonex German Open 2008

2008-03-03T20:55:00.000-08:00

Anup Sridhar, seeded No. 9, faced 2004 Athens Olympic Games Silver medalist, Korean Seung Mo Shon, in the first round of the German Open.

Anup, who just a few days earlier had captained India to a fifth place finish in the Thomas Cup Asia round in Vietnam, lost to Seung, who was part of the Korean team that finished second in the same tournament. Seung eventually went on to reach the semi-finals.

Anup's next tournament is the Yonex All England Super Series 2008 which begins from today. He is the only Indian male in the main draw and plays World No. 1, Lin Dan, in the first round tomorrow. The two have met twice before – 2007 German Open and 2007 World Championships – with Lin Dan winning both.

‘Tricky start for holder Lin Dan at All England champs’ - Reuters

2008 Thomas & Uber Cup Asian Qualifying Rounds

2008-02-26T23:41:00.000-08:00

Anup Sridhar led the Indian men’s team – which consisted of Arvind Bhat, Chetan Anand, Akshay Dewalkar, V. Diju, P. Kashyap, Rupesh Kumar, Sanave Thomas and J.B.S. Vidyasagar – to a fifth place finish at the Thomas Cup Asian qualifying round held at Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam from 19^th – 24^th Feb.

Being the top ranked Indian player, Anup consistently played against higher ranked opponents. His big win came in the last tie against Hong Kong where he beat World No. 19 Yan Kit Chan.

A summary of his matches:

League match against Pakistan:
Anup Sridhar (27) beat Wajid Ali (167) in straight sets – 21-16 21-15 – wrapping up the match in 30 min. Head-2-Head Anup leads 2:0.

League match against Japan:
Anup Sridhar (27) lost to Shoji Sato (17) – 17-21 15-21 in 35 minutes. Head-2-Head Anup and Shoji are tied at 2:2.

Quarterfinal match against Malaysia:
Anup Sridhar (27) lost to Chong Wei Lee (2) – 15-21 14-21 in 28 minutes. Head-2-Head Chong leads 2:0.

5^th – 8^th place match against Singapore:
Anup Sridhar (27) lost to Yen Hui Kendrick Lee (20) – 16-21 14-21 in 24 minutes. Head-2-Head Yen leads 2:0.

5^th – 8^th place match against Hong Kong:
Anup Sridhar (27) beat Yan Kit Chan (19) – 21-16 21-17 in 26 minutes. Head-2-Head Anup leads 1:0.

Anup’s next tournament is the Yonex German Open at Rhein-Ruhr Halle/ Mulheim, Germany from 26^th February – 2^nd March. Anup reached the semi-finals last year and is currently seeded No. 9.

2008 Senior National Badminton Championships - Goa from 19-27January

2008-02-20T07:00:00.001-08:00

Anup Sridhar came into the tournament immediately after playing the Proton Malaysia Open Super Series 2008 where he reached the pre-quarter finals, losing to Hyun Ii Lee who was the eventual runner-up.

Anup had little time to shed off the travel fatigue and jet lag in pursuit of the title of National Champion (which has little significance beyond the title). Anup was the top seeded player in the tournament as he was the No. 1 ranked player in India.

The tournament started with the Team event, where Anup lead the Petroleum Sports Control Board to the title. In Men’s singles that followed, Anup’s run ended at the semi-finals where he was edged out by Chetan Anand, who was the defending National Champion, in a tight three-set match.

Anup’s next tournament is the Thomas Cup in Vietnam from 19-24 February where he is the captain of the Indian Men’s team.

Wrap of 2007 and the beginning of 2008 ...

2008-02-07T03:45:00.000-08:00

2007 was an eventful and successful year for Anup Sridhar as he ended the year as the top Indian badminton player with a career-high world ranking of 25.

Having reached the semifinals at the German Open and the Asian Continental Championships and the quarterfinals at the Thailand Open and, most importantly, at the 2007 World Championships, the next year holds much promise for this budding shuttler. Anup has displayed, on more than one occasion, that he can take on and beat the best in the world. His most famous win was the one over Taufik Hidayat – former world no. 1, gold medalist at the 2004 Athens Olympics and 2005 World Champion – at the World Championships in what was one of the longest matches of the tournament. Anup's performance at the World Championships was rated among the top-10 Indian sporting performances of 2007.

Anup started 2008 with a bang by winning the prestigious Pramod Mahajan All-India ranking tournament in New Delhi. He followed that up by reaching the pre-quarterfinals, one round better than last year, of the Proton Malaysia Super Series where he lost to Hyun Il Lee, the eventual runner-up.

Anup is an employee of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd. and is currently sponsored by Yonex and SLK Software.

The next few months are crucial for Anup as he aims to confirm his place at the Beijing Olympics. Possessing the incredible ability to raise his game when it really matters, we strongly believe that Anup has the potential to be amongst the best in the world and that he is a strong medal contender at Beijing this year.

Go Anup Go!

World Championships '07- Part 2

2007-09-11T23:49:00.000-07:00

I wrote in the previous post how the crowd in my match against Taufik Hidayat was mostly against me. In the next match (last 16) against Hafiz Hashim, a Malaysian, the crowd was even noisier and of course supporting him.

I'd recovered quite well from my match the previous day. I felt a little stiff in my legs when I woke up but I had a warm up training session with Saina and our coach and felt much better after that. I was on only at 8 in the evening so I had plenty of time to rest, eat lunch and do some stretching exercises once more. I also found time to watch a couple of episodes of 'House'. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys medical drama and comedy. Hugh Laurie is insane!

I'd played Hafiz once before in 2005 and had lost quite badly. But coming off a win agaisnt Taufik, I was feeling very confident. I started off well, took an early lead, and won the first game 21-19. I was able to get off to a good start in the second game as well but I had trouble with the air conditioning in the latter half of the second game and made too many unforced errors. I lost the second 18-21. I was quite happy with my fitness and felt confident that I could keep up in the third game, and I also saw that Hafiz was tiring towards the end of the second. He was trying risky shots, taken more time than usual between rallies and breathing hard. That gave me even more of a mental boost. I was able to start well once again, changed ends at 11-8 and won 21-15.

Of course I was happy that I won and had reached the quarterfinal, but I was also thinking about my next match against Lin Dan. I'd lost to him twice before and was looking forward to playing him, especially since I was playing well. I guess I did'nt recover too well from my match against Hafiz because I was cramping again and woke up the next morning with sore and stiff legs. I did my usual warm up in the morninig and felt a little better. I was on at about 3 in the afternoon this time so I did'nt get to watch any more 'House', but I will catch up with that later.

The difference between playing someone like Lin Dan and anyone else, is that it takes just that little bit more to win a rally. I knew this as I'd played him before but it still takes a little while to get used to it. I was down in the early part of the first game but I recovered to get to game point at 20-19. In hindsight, I guess I should've waited a lttle more in that rally for a good opportunity before trying to finish it off, but then its much harder to think at that time. I let the game slip away 20-22 and never really recovered from that. In the second I could feel that I was'nt able to keep up the pace any more. I was also at the fast end in the second game so that meant that I had to attack a lot more than in the first, but I was'nt able to do it. I lost the second 9-21.

Looking back, of course I am happy about the result, it is my best result so far, but I'm not so happy about the way it ended. I feel like I can do quite a bit better than this. There are still a lot of things I have to work on and theres a lot of room for improvement. I'm working harder than ever before now, and hopefully that pays off soon. I'll be playing the Chinese Taipei Open next from 18-23 September and then heading to Denmark from there. I'll be around Europe for about 2 months or so and return in december. I will be training with Morten Frost while in Denmark and Im looking forward to learning from him. If I'm allowed to take my computer with me ( with these new security regulations, I dont know ) I'll have regular updates from Taipei and then Europe.

World Championships 2007

2007-09-07T18:46:00.000-07:00

As some of you may know, I reached the quarterfinals of the World Badminton Championships held at kuala lumpur betwee 13th and 19th August 2007. This is the best result so far in my career.

I had been planning for about a month before the tournament to get to KL as early as possible so I can get adjusted to the climate, food and if possible get to practice in the tournament hall. So when I contacted Lee Tseun Seng of KL Racket Club, a private badminton club in Kuala Lumpur and they said I could train with them, I took off as soon as I could, about 11 days before the tournament. Players in the club included Tseun Seng and Sairul of Malaysia and Andrew Smith of England, all of whom are higher ranked than me.

Usually for me, in the last couple of weeks leading up to a tournament, I feel better if I dont cut down on training too much, but cut down on playing instead. I might only play about 1 1\2 hours instead of the usual 3 or so. I dont cut down too much on the running sessions and weight training. I've found that this works for me.

I was drawn to play Juergen Koch of Austria in the first round. He'd beaten me once before but I knew I had a very good chance in this match as I was feeling very good physically. I won 21-15,21-19. Did'nt really play too well, cos its hard to get adjusted to the court conditions when theres so much wind in the hall. But I guess all that matters is that I won. Usually when you get through the first round of any tournament, thats when you feel like you're well and truly in and thats exactly how I felt. I had a day off before second round match against Taufik Hidayat of Indonesia. He does'nt need too much introduction, does he?

I'd played Taufik twice before, and though I'd lost both in straight games, I had come very close. Coming close and actually winning are two completely different things, and I knew it. But I felt that if I was able to keep calm towards the last few points and not get anxious, I could at least win 1 game off him.I had talked to the Indian national coach, P.Gopichand and we'd decided how I needed to play. Our match was scheduled to start at 1 p.m. but ended up starting at 2:45 p.m. because the previous matches on our court took longer than expected. This messed up my warm up, and I was starting to feel hungry as well but it was the same for Taufik so I was'nt too worried.

I won 21-14,24-26,22-20 in about 75 minutes. I was dehydrated after the match and cramped up in my legs, hands and abdomen. So while I was happy at winning the match, I was thinking about my next match and if I would recover in time for it. Luckily for me I only had to play at 8 p.m. the next day so that gave me more than a day to recover. That turned out to be more than enough. When I woke up the next day, I felt fine, a little stiff but that was to be expected. I went to the practice hall for a warm up, and I felt fine.

One thing that I experienced for the first time was playing a big match in a country like Malaysia. Badminton is very popular in Indonesia and Malaysia and playing in these countries is unbelievable. The crowd gets so loud (against me on this occasion, but thats fine) and it is such a great atmosphere to play in. This is what we play for, to play in front of a big, noisy crowd and it was a great experience.

Hello everyone

2007-08-29T21:53:00.000-07:00

Its been a long time since I wrote. As some of you may know, I had a good run in the recently concluded World Championships in Kuala Lumpur. I have got a few requests asking me to continue writing, so I will. Maybe it wont be so much about the matches, but more about my general experience. There should be a new post in a few days.

Asian Games- I

2006-12-22T10:26:00.000-08:00

I'm back to writing again after a long break. I'm trying to figure out how to manage my time more efficiently so I can find more time to write so forgive me for the delay.
The Asian Games recently came to an end and India did quite well. I'm not too sure about how we did compared with the previous edition in Busan,Korea but I think we were better this time around.
As far as badminton goes, the team championships actually started on 30th November, a day before the opening ceremony. This seemed strange to me but there were some other sports that started on the same day. There were a total of 9 countries in the team championships with 3 groups of 3 teams each. India was placed in Group A along with China and Indonesia! To top it off, the schedule was such that we played both China and Indonesia on the same day! This was extremely surprising considering our creditable performance in the Thomas Cup and Commonwealth Games, specially since the other groups were much easier than ours. But then again, IBF or BWF or whatever it is called now has a history of making clueless decisions so this crazy draw did'nt really surprise me too much.
So, it was China that we were up against on 30th Morning. We lost 0-5, but considering that China won all their matches in the Thomas Cup without dropping a single match, it was always going to be very hard. There were a few games where we came close, with me losing my first game against World no.1 Lin Dan 19-21 and Kashyap losing his second game to Chen Jin 19-21.
Later that day we played Indonesia. Once again we lost 0-5 but it was a much tougher fight than the score suggests. I played first singles against Taufik Hidayat, the reigning Olympic Champion and lost 21-23,16-21. I was extremely close in the first game and really should have won it. I get a little too anxious in the end and Taufik was getting better and better. I was close in the second game as well until 16-16 but then again made a few unforced errors which I could'nt afford and lost it at 16-21.
Kashyap then played a very good match against Simon Santoso and almost won but Simon proved to be better at the crucial points and ended up winning 21-16 in the third game. Both out mens doubles pairs also gave a very tough fight to the Indonesian pairs and lost in 3 games.
I enjoyed playing Lin Dan and Taufik and found that while playing at this high level, I cant afford to give away easy points. It becomes too hard to fight back if I give away even a few unforced errors in a game. Also, its extremely important to be able to keep focused and have a clear mind when the score is close and the game is coming to an end. I found both Lin Dan and Taufik raising their game and playing at a faster pace towards the end of the game, just when they needed to.

The opening ceremony was held the next day on 1st November. It was the first time I was going to an opening ceremony of a Multi Sport event like this since at the Commonwealth games in March, I did'nt attend the opening as I had a match on the next day. It turned out to be very disappointing. All athletes were taken to a gym where we sat waiting for about 3 1/2 hours. There were a couple of big screens where we could watch the ceremony going on in a stadium next door. To be frank, it was pretty boring to watch on the screen, could'nt understand half the stuff that was going on. But it was a chance to catch up with Indian athletes from other sports so it was'nt a total loss. We were eventually led to the stadium where we walked around the stadium once and waited for the other teams to come in. After all the teams were in, there were a few speeches made, not really sure about what but they seemed pretty long cos we were standing the whole time. The fireworks display towards the end of the ceremony was very nice, as expected, so that cheered us up. After the ceremony we were making our way along with all the other athletes to the exit when it actually started to rain. Considering the fact that we were in a desert, it was a big surprise. The rain started off slowly but was soon a heavy downpour. All of us got wet, were led around in circles until we finally spotted the buses and managed to get in. We were all completely drenched in the rain and it was also very cold so it was'nt a happy end to my first opening ceremony. I dont think I'll be attending too many of those in the future.

The individual events started off on the 5th of December and got over on the 9th. I'll write about that in the next post. Hope you had fun reading this one. Please leave your comments!

Some disappointing results

2006-10-02T23:06:00.000-07:00

I’m finally down to writing my thoughts on my results at the Korea Open, Hong Kong Open and the World Championships.
Starting off with the Korea Open: I played Li Yu from China in the first round. I won 22-20,18-21,21-19. I didn’t feel I played too well in this match, but the conditions were very tough -- with a lot of wind in the hall and difficult lighting to get used to.
I played Dicky Palyama of Holland in the second round and I felt pretty good about this match, considering I’d beaten him a few weeks ago in Singapore. But this time I lost 21-16,14-21,18-21. I was okay in the first game but it started to go wrong right from the start of the second. Dicky was better prepared to play me this time and he anticipated a lot of my smashes. I should still have won, but with the new scoring system sometimes the game gets over before you realise what happened.
At Hong Kong, I played Yogendran Krishnan of Malaysia in the first round. I lost 21-14,17-21,14-21. Again, I started off well, but I wasn’t able to keep it up. Yogendran also had a good match, and he was pulling off pretty much any stroke he played.

Injury strikes
The World Championships returned to Spain this year after a gap of five years. It was held in Seville in 2001.
The team had had a camp of about two weeks in Hyderabad before leaving for Seville. Unfortunately, a few days before we were to leave, I hurt my right calf muscle. Doctors in Hyderabad told me there was no muscle tear but that it was a case of acute strain of the muscle.
As a result I wasn’t really able to do any training for about a week before my match. I took a lot of physiotherapy treatment in Hyderabad and on reaching Madrid. This didn’t have the desired effect though, and I wasn’t 100% while playing my first round against Liao Sheng Shiun of Chinese Taipei. I lost 21-19,16-21,14-21.
This was a strange match for me because I was unable to jump sideways comfortably so I was constantly using makeshift movements. It was no surprise then that I lost to a lower ranked player.
So my first World Championships didn’t turn out to be as great as I hoped but I’m remaining positive and am currently getting treatment for my calf in Bangalore. I’m not sure yet what tournament I will play next as it depends on how soon I can get back to 100% fitness.

New Post

2006-09-23T13:04:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,
Sorry about not updating the blog in the last couple of months. I've been travelling a lot lately and with the new airline regulations, ,I have not had my computer with me. I will shortly upload my reviews of 3 tournaments I played recently, Korea Open, Hong Kong Open and the World Championships in Madrid. I have had a few ordinary results but I figure its not fair to only update my good results. Expect these within a weeks time. I'm also trying to add a couple of features like online auctions of badminton memorabilia, forums for discussion of various topics relating to badminton etc. Let me know if you would like to see something like this on the blog.

Pitted against the world no.2 and the ref

2006-06-22T03:06:00.000-07:00

Malaysia Open: By the time we arrived in Kuching for the Malaysia Open, we had been on the tour for more than three weeks and getting tired of having to adjust to different kinds of food, playing conditions etc. I beat Jean Michel Lefort of France in the first round 22-20, 21-11. The first game was close, but I could see that Lefort was tiring at the end of it and managed to win the second game quite easily.

In the second round, I played Lee Chong Wei of Malaysia, the world No.2 and defending champion. I lost the first game 13-21 and was down 13-8 in the second before I found my rhythm. I knew that if I kept cool and remained focussed I would have a chance at some point in the match.

I could see that Lee was distracted in the latter half of the second game and capitalized on that to win it 21-17. In the third game, the umpire, being Malaysian, was totally biased in Lee’s favour and was very unfair to me. She even gave me a red card for just asking to talk to the chief referee. A red card means that the opponent is given one point. This is usually shown to a player who is abusive to his/her opponent and the umpire. All I did here was ask to talk to the referee and I was shown a red card.

I lost my focus at that point and went down 13-21 in the third game. This meant that my Asian tour had come to an end. Arvind Bhat came up with a brilliant straight sets win over Kenneth Jonassen in the second round but failed to get past the next hurdle, losing to Roman Spitko of Germany in the last 16 stage.

All in all, I had a successful Asian tour with my ranking going up about 30 places from 65 to 35. I had some very good wins and have also learned what I need to work on to get better. My next international tournament will probably be the World Championships in September.

Cracking the top 35

2006-06-22T03:00:00.000-07:00

Singapore Open: The Singapore Open was to be held in the Singapore Indoor stadium as it has been for many years now. This is a very big stadium with a huge gallery and also with a lot of wind inside the playing hall. I had lost in the first round here last year.

This year, in the first round, I was to play world No.19 and 5/8 seed Dicky Palyama of the Netherlands. Again, I had seen him play before but this was our first match against each other. I won 30-28, 21-17 to make it the best win of my career so far.

The first game, as the score suggests, was very close and I saved five game points and needed nine game points before I closed it out. Winning such a close first game meant that I had a big psychological advantage at the start of the second game. I went up by a big margin immediately and closed out the second game at 21-17.
I played Lu Yi, another young Chinese player, in the second round. Lu Yi had just beaten Chetan Anand in the Indonesia Open and was in good form. I had a good strategy for this match and I handled the drift (wind) in the hall well to win 21-18, 21-16.

In the third round, the last 16 stage, I played Andrew Smith of England. Smith has been around on the circuit for a long time and can be a difficult opponent. But by this time I had adjusted very well to the playing conditions and I won quite easily, 21-9, 21-16, to enter the quarterfinal.

I lost to Kenneth Jonassen of Denmark, the world No.5, 15-21, 15-21 in the quarterfinal the next day. I was a little unlucky in the second game with three line calls going against me. These bad calls can make so much of a difference when the scores are level and I was not able to recover in time and lost in straight games.
Still, reaching the quarterfinal was a great result and my world ranking went up another eight places to 35, which is my best-ever ranking. Apart from Chetan, who reached the last 16 stage, the other Indians lost in the first and second rounds.

Pre-quarters at Surabaya

2006-06-22T02:55:00.000-07:00

Indonesia Open: We arrived in Surabaya the day after the big earthquake in Indonesia and were a bit worried but Surabaya was not affected by the quake. The Indonesia Open was to be a 6-star event, meaning there would be a lot of ranking points on offer here.

Taufik Hidayat, the current World and Olympic Champion, has a great record here having won this event five times already. I was up against Shoji Sato in the first round, the 9/16 seed from Japan. Sato has been in great form, having beaten Taufik Hidayat in the Thomas Cup finals in Japan in May.

I had watched him play before but this was our first match. I won 21-18, 17-21, 21-19. I had a good strategy in this match and was able to execute it well enough to win. Sato is very quick around the court, probably the quickest in the world, but has trouble keeping up the speed as he gets tired playing at that fast pace. I knew there would be some rallies where I would have no chance at all because he is so quick. But I also knew that if I was able to hang on for a few rallies at the fast pace, Sato would tire and give me some easy points. In the end, I feel I won because I was fitter than him.

In the second round I beat Bo Rafn of Denmark 21-10, 21-12. I was accustomed to the conditions on court by now and had a great match against Bo. In the third round, the last 16 stage, I was up against Qui Yanbo, a young Chinese. I lost to Yanbo 15-21, 19-21. Towards the end of the match, I could see that Yanbo was very tired and I would’ve had the advantage in the third game if I’d won the second, but I just didn’t play well enough in the closing stages of the second game and lost in straight sets.

Excepting me and Kashyap, who lost in the second round, nobody in the our men's singles team managed to get past the first round. Getting to the last 16 stage in a 6-star event was a good result for me, and I went up about 15 places on the world rankings after this result.

Saina rules at Manila

2006-06-22T02:48:00.000-07:00

Philippines Open: This was the first of four tournaments that the Indian team was to participate in. I played a local player, Bartolomew, in the first round. I won 14-21, 21-8, 22-20. It shouldn’t have been such a close match but I was a little overconfident and paid the price for it.

With the new 21 rally point scoring system it is very important to remain focussed throughout a match even if it is easy as it can get close very quickly. I didn’t exactly have the best start to the tournament and I ended up losing in the next round to 9/16 seed Kendrick Lee of Singapore 22-20, 19-21, 19-21. I had beaten Lee in the Commonwealth Games in March, but this time he managed to play better in the closing stages of the second and third games and won in three tough games.

Arvind and Chetan got to the last 16 stage losing to Ng Wei and Roslin Hashim respectively.

But the story of the tournament has to be Saina Nehwal’s first Grand Prix victory. She was unseeded and ranked 85 at the start of the tournament. Saina beat Xu Haiwen of Germany in the quarterfinal, which is probably the biggest win ever by any Indian woman as Xu is ranked No.4 in the world. Saina went on to beat unseeded but good players in the semifinal (Ai Goto) and final (Julia Wong) and thus won her first Grand Prix event.

What was striking to me was that she played very confidently even though she is only 16 and hasn’t had too much experience in international badminton. This is surely the biggest achievement ever by an Indian woman in badminton. She has shown that there are no rules anymore, anything is possible.

Hello Everyone

2006-06-14T05:45:00.000-07:00

Sorry I have'nt been updating the blog for the last few weeks. A combination of limited internet access and not having enough time is why I have'nt posted anything new yet.I am currently participating in the Malaysian Open and will run into Lee Chong Wei tomorrow in the second round. This is the last of four tournaments that I have now played consecutively. I will put up reports of the 4 tournaments as well as a couple more posts when I am back in India. Expect these posts in about a week or so! Thank you for the words of encouragement and for the visits. Please keep visiting!

Q and A

2006-05-09T10:02:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone. I will be happy to answer any questions you may have about what I've written or on any other topic. Leave your questions either as a comment or on the online chat window you see on the right of your screen and I will get to it as soon as possible. Suggestions on what to change or introduce on the blog are welcome.

Memories of Thomas Cup Finals (Japan):

2006-05-09T09:55:00.000-07:00

One thing that I am sure every player will remember is the courtesy of our hosts,the Japanese.The staff and officials always had a smile on their faces and were always happy to help us out with any problem we had. The organisation of the whole event; hotel room bookings, transport to and from the badminton hall,everything was handled with great efficiency. One person I would like to mention in particular is the liason officer of our team, Tomosayu. He made sure that the Indian team always had all relevant information and that we had an enjoyable stay in Japan.
Though we did'nt really finish with a flourish, going down easily to Denmark, we achieved our target of making it to the quarterfinals. Coupled with good performances in the Thomas Cup Preliminaries and the Commonwealth Games and some good individual performances, India, as a team is looking considerably stronger than it has been for a long time. Most of the credit for this goes to our national coach Vimal Kumar and to the doubles coach Hadi Sugianto, an Indonesian. He has improved the standard of Indian doubles to the extent that we can now expect them to come through for us when we really need it. Vimal Kumar has done a similar job with the singles players and we will miss him now that he has resigned.

Outplayed by Denmark

2006-05-09T09:44:00.000-07:00

3rd May'06,(Tokyo):
We played Denmark today and lost 0-3. Chetan was up first against Peter Gade and he lost in straight games. Peter Gade has been one of the most consistent players in the last 7-8 years and has always been in the top 10 on the world ranking list. I was up next against Kenneth Jonassen who is also in the top 10 in the world. I lost in straight games also,the scoreline reading 12-21,10-21. I did'nt feel like I played as well as I could have today but maybe that was because Jonassen just did'nt allow me to play my game. He is very consistent and makes very few unforced errors, always making you earn your points. That is something I will try to develop myself, wont be easy but it is very important. The first doubles was next and Rupesh and Diju played well against the Danish pair of Lundgård Hansen and Jens Erickssen losing in two tough games. The way Rupesh and Diju handled the difficult conditions on court was very impressive. But their loss meant that we were out of the Thomas Cup, having lost 0-3.

Achieved our goal of reaching the quarters

2006-05-03T22:00:00.000-07:00

1 May ’06, Sendai:
We've just beaten New Zealand 3-0. The New Zealand team was at a disadvantage as two of their players were injured. However, in our team, Chetan said he didn’t want to play as he had blisters on his feet. So I was gonna play first singles, which was perfectly fine with me. New Zealand's only real threat was John Moody, their first singles player. He’s ranked 32 in the world and has been in good form. In fact he'd beaten me in both our previous matches. My current ranking is 64, so it would be quite a big upset to beat him.

I knew from our previous matches that he was a steady player with good temperament and a good smash. I started off pretty well in the first game and was always up by at least two points. He came close to me at 11-12 but I moved ahead and closed the first game out at 21-15. The other players from New Zealand who were cheering for Moody were being pretty loud but I was able to keep the focus on court. I felt much better on court in the second game and went up by a big margin right from the start. I didn’t ease off the pressure and closed out the match at 21-9. The scoreline 21-15, 21-9 proved that the work I have been putting in practice has paid off.

Arvind beat youngster Henry Tam in the second singles in straight games. Henry came close to Arvind in the first game but was outclassed in the second.

Nikhil, who was to play third singles as Chetan didn’t want to play, was up next against Craig Cooper, a doubles player who was forced to play singles as New Zealand's regular third singles player was injured. Nikhil won the first game easily but was very out-of-sorts in the second and lost 17-21. He however regrouped to win an easy third game to give India the victory at 3-0! This meant that we had entered the quarterfinals of the Thomas Cup!!!

When we qualified for the Thomas Cup final round in February and saw our draw, we were told by our coaches to aim to reach the quarterfinals as that would be a good result. We will now move to Tokyo for the latter stages of the tournament and will face Denmark on 3rd May. Denmark is a very strong team with the likes of Peter Gade, Kenneth Jonassen, Jonas Rasmussen and Lars Paaske in their team. It will be a very tough match but we're in pretty good form and should be able to give them a run for their money in a couple of the singles matches. But no matter who we play against, we will go all out in this tie as we have nothing to lose.

Outlasted Conrad

2006-05-01T21:34:00.000-07:00

29 April '06
Just through with our match against Germany and we won 3-2! Chetan lost his first singles match against Bjorn Joppien. Bjorn played well, but I was a little surprised that Chetan fell in straight sets as Arvind had beaten Bjorn last time they played. I'd also taken a game off him when I played Bjorn a year ago.

I played Conrad Hueckstaedt next in the second singles. I won 22-20, 14-21, 21-6. This was the first time I played Conrad though I'd seen him playing before. I felt he played really well, but the only reason I lost the second game was because I decided to take chances and go for the lines and ended up making too many errors. I could see that he was tiring by the end of the second game so I changed my strategy for the third. I played a little safer and decided to wear him down. There were some long rallies at the start of the third game and I guess he was very tired by then. I kept up the pace and moved him around a lot and won easily at 21-6.

Arvind beat Roman Spitko next in the third singles and beat him in three games. The third game was quite close but Arvind always had a lead of 2-3 points and finished it off successfully.

Thomas Kurien and Jaseel Ismail played next and lost rather easily to Ingo and Hopp in straight games. The last and deciding match as between Rupesh and Diju, our scratch combination against Fuchs and Spitko. Rupesh and Diju won a close first game and then went on to win the second quite easily giving us the third point and thus the win over Germany! We will now play New Zealand in the pre-quarterfinals on 1st May.

Not a bad show against China

2006-05-01T21:30:00.000-07:00

28 April
We've just finished our match against China and we lost 0-5. The score sounds bad but considering the fact that China are the defending champions and the fact that most us gave a good account of ourselves, it’s not too bad. Chetan managed to take a game off the world No.1 Lin Dan. Lin didn’t really look very good today but that doesn’t mean Chetan didn’t play well.

I lost to Chen Jin 14-21,10-21. Chen is just coming off a win in the China Masters and he’s in great form. I ran him close in the first game but he just seemed to have better control on the game than I did. I was almost always following his pace, very rarely setting the pace myself, which I'm good at. I guess the fact that this was the first time I played in the main hall also made a difference. We play Germany tomorrow, and the tie is important if we have to move on to the quarterfinal.

Off to Japan!

2006-05-01T21:25:00.000-07:00

Earlier in the year, the Indian men’s team made it to the semifinals of the Thomas Cup Preliminary Rounds held in Jaipur in February 2006. This meant that we had qualified for the final rounds of the Thomas Cup after a gap of six years and only for the fifth time ever in Indian badminton history. In preparation for the final rounds, we went through a 16-day camp at the KBA stadium in Bangalore. This stadium offers ten badminton courts in excellent condition including four 'hova’ courts, a feature that is not very common in India. The stadium also has a world class gym and a small swimming pool, so that makes it arguably the best badminton facility in India. I was doing more physical training in the camp than usual as it had been a while since I'd done any hard training.

As is always the case, we (players and coaches) only got to know our travel arrangements the day before we left, and we received our passports and tickets only a few hours before we were supposed to leave. I can’t figure why this happens every single time, but I can’t afford to be bothered by it as it is never going to change. It was like this during Prakash Sir's time and it will be like this always. And so we were off on the night of 25th April 2006. Our flight route was as follows: Bangalore-Bangkok-Tokyo-Sendai. It was a long journey, and especially tiring by the wait at every airport. It took us about a day to reach Sendai, where the group matches would be held. We would need to enter the quarterfinals to enter the next stage of the tournament in Tokyo.

Being placed in the same group as China and Germany, that isn’t going to be easy. We only had one practice session in a practice hall as the main hall was being readied for the matches. This is a definite disadvantage as all other countries have practiced in the main hall and they'll be better adjusted to the conditions.

My stint in Denmark

2006-04-24T20:27:00.000-07:00

In June 2005 I decided along with my coaches Prakash Padukone and Vimal Kumar that it would be a good learning experience to move to Denmark and play for a club for one season. It would no doubt help me to play with Denmark’s best players and it would also make travelling around Europe to play in international tournaments very easy if I was based in Denmark. So with this I mind I left for Copenhagen on August 26th 2005.

I’ve to take care of everything?
I was met at the airport by Kasper Fangel, coach of Skaelskor Badminton Club, the club I was to represent. Kasper was only 26, but he was already semi-retired, playing only in the Danish league. He drove me to his office where we had lunch (a sandwich, what kind of a lunch is that?) and had a talk regarding where I would live, what would my schedule be during the week, which tournament I would participate in during my stay there, etc. I thought I would leave after the meeting to go to Skaelskor (where I would live with three other players of the same club), but I was wrong. Kasper informed me, very matter-of-factly, that we would first have a training session in Copenhagen, after which I would go home!

I had just been through a 26-hour journey, what with all the waiting in various airports and the many connections I was forced to make as a result of booking my tickets late. I went along for the training as I didn’t want to come off with a bad first impression.

When I finally got home after a one-hour train ride, a 30-minute bus ride, and a 10-minute walk, I was pleasantly surprised to see the size of the house that I would live in for the next eight months on and off. There were four bedrooms, one for each player staying there. There was Agus Wijaya, an Indonesian; Atu Rosalina, also Indonesian, and Anastasia Russkikh, a Russian.

Staying on my own was a new experience as I hadn’t done that before. It felt nice to have my space, to be able to make my own decisions, but the novelty quickly wore off when I realized I also had to do my own laundry, cook my own food, clean my own room, etc. I had always been pampered at home by my mom, I’d never done my laundry, let alone cook my own food or clean my room. I quickly learned to cook a little bit of barely edible food which still took me a lot of time to prepare until I bought a microwave and discovered the wonders of re-heated food.

Another thing I was going to have to get used to was the commute to IBA (International Badminton Academy). I had to take a bus, train and then another bus to get to the academy. It took me about two-and-a-half hours approximately, so if I was training from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. I had to get up very early. Later on, the manager of SBK (Skaelskor Badminton Club) allowed me to use his second car to drive myself to the academy. This was great as it saved me something like three hours a day.

Living in Skaelskor
Living in Skaelskor was unlike anything I had experienced before. Skaelskor is a small town near the sea with a population of only about 5000. Coming from Bangalore where the population is something like 6.5 million it was quite strange to see empty roads, supermarkets which aren’t crowded all the time and open spaces in general.

I learnt quickly that prices in supermarkets are very different and there are some shops to avoid as the same food you can buy elsewhere is much more expensive there. The house we (four players) were staying in was owned by the manager of SBK who lived in another house that he owned. We were each given a cycle to get around in Skaelskor. The badminton hall was about 10 minutes away by cycle and the supermarkets, salons, restaurants and bakery were about the same distance.

Training in Denmark
I was going to IBA three days a week i.e. Monday, Wednesday and Friday and had club sessions two days a week: Tuesday and Thursday. Any physical training that I wanted to do was up to me. There was a gym which wasn’t very fancy but had all the necessary equipment and there were woods where I could do any running that I wanted to.

The training in IBA was very different from back home in Bangalore. In Bangalore, the training sessions would last approximately 3 ½ hours and I would be on court for about three hours, either playing or helping someone. In IBA, the sessions were two hours only, including warm up and cooling down after training. It was more intense of course, but I always felt the sessions could’ve been longer.

Michael Kjeldsen , head coach at IBA, would have me figure out for myself what I needed to work on, and how I thought whatever problem I had could be solved. This was again different from Bangalore and it made me start thinking more about the game, always a good thing. Another difference from the training back home was the fact that in Denmark, I would play a lot more games during the training. In Bangalore, I would play games twice a week at the most but here I would play games about four-five times a week! This meant that I was competing a lot more, and against players who didn’t give a damn whether you were the Indian national champion or not. It helped, but again, I’m not too sure that its something I want to continue always, because there has to be a lot of drills in the training to improve any stroke I feel needs improving.

Like I said earlier, any physical training that I wanted to do was up to me. I had a schedule made for me by Kasper for running and there were mostly interval runs in it as Kasper explained to me that that was what the Danes believed was the best kind of training for badminton. I would do most of my weight training with a junior player from the club, Rasmus Hansen, who was eager to learn what kind of weight training I was doing in Bangalore. It always helped to have somebody to train with as it just felt less boring.

Tournaments around Europe
I had a schedule of tournaments to play during my stint in Denmark which included two Grand Prix events and about four A grade events. I won my first International title when I won the men’s singles at the Hungarian International in October. I didn’t really play so well after that for a few events as I was getting tired of being in Europe. The cold weather, gloomy skies and the change in food wasn’t easy to get adjusted to. I found myself entering in tournaments and on arriving at the venue, would wonder when I could get back. This, of course, isn’t what you want to be thinking about when you arrive for a tournament. Ideally, you want to be looking forward to the competition, feeling fit and strong and generally feeling pumped up. In hindsight, I guess I could’ve planned my schedule a little better, playing fewer events and training more.

Apart from the Hungarian International, I reached the semifinal of the Scottish International in November which I felt was an okay result and I had a couple of good wins before losing to Wacha of Poland in the semis. I cramped very badly in that match, or I would’ve had a chance in the third game.

I also played the Danish Open which was a five or six-star event, one of the biggest tournaments in the IBF calendar, where I lost to Kenneth Jonassen of Denmark in the second round. The score was only 15-2, 15-6 but I felt that I played okay, and I feel if I get another shot at him I can do much better. I was also in the quarterfinal of the Iceland International in November. All in all, I could tell that though there wasn’t any big difference in my technique or fitness for that matter, the difference in me since coming to Denmark was that I was more open to accepting drift in the badminton hall, bad hotels, bad food and different conditions in general. That doesn’t mean I was not affected by drift in the hall, but I was not bothered by it as much as I used to be.

Team Matches
Denmark has probably the best league in the world. All the Danes play in it, as do most of Europe’s top players. This is a big part of the reason that Denmark seems to be able to produce so many players of good quality. The juniors in Denmark are exposed to world class badminton from a very young age. The highest division is the elite division and the 1st, 2nd and 3rd divisions follow. There are eight teams in the elite division and every year the bottom ranked team gets relegated to the 1st division and the top ranked team from the 1st division moves up to the elite division.

Skaelskor had just moved to elite in 2005 and that’s the reason I was invited to play for the club, as they needed more players to stay in the elite. At the start of the season, I was to play second singles as I was lower ranked than Kasper Fangel (who played first singles) in the Danish rankings. I moved up to first singles I the second half of the season though. I played 10 team matches in all of which I won four and lost six. I had to play a couple of matches the day after I landed in Denmark and I had a tough time being ready for those matches. But to be honest, I didn’t perform as well as I know I can. I guess I had a hard time playing the matches, there’s a lot more pressure in these kind of matches because you’re playing for more than just yourself. Again, I guess the experience of playing these kind of matches has helped me.

Downside of being in Denmark
Not everything about my trip to Denmark was positive. For example, I missed the Asian Badminton Championships which was held in India (Hyderabad). This was a four-star event and I could’ve earned a lot of ranking points playing this tournament. I also missed the India Satellite which was held in Delhi. Playing an international event in your country helps in the sense that you know what conditions to expect and are probably used to it. I also ended up missing a lot of Indian ranking tournaments and as a result went down to No.4 from No.1 in the ranking list.

Another area where I felt I would’ve improved if I hadn’t gone to Denmark is physical fitness. In the first 3 ½ months that I spent in Denmark I played seven team matches, six International tournaments and one domestic tournament. This left very little time for training and I guess my fitness did suffer a bit.

Summary
Before I left for Denmark, Prakash Sir had told me exactly what I would face and as it turned out he was absolutely right. He told me that I would find it hard in the first couple of months, but would then get used to it and start to enjoy it. He said that I would come back not sure of whether or not it had helped but would realize on being back a few months that it did in fact help. I guess the only thing he said would happen which didn’t was me eventually liking the chores around the house like cooking and laundry.

Party at the Big Mac

2006-04-24T00:09:00.000-07:00