How K-pop and Hindi songs help Pragati Parida-Vishakha Toppo vibe on and off court

Listening to some Korean and later Hindi and Punjabi songs to cool off the tension after the testy exchange, they proceeded to start making mental notes of their next match in the competition.

“As a doubles pair, we fight a lot on things about making a wrong guess about an in shot or hitting the net (laughs). But this has come only after playing on the tour for more than three years and helps us to grow our game together. When we listen to the Korean songs or Hindi songs moments later, our coaches would tell us ‘Are you girls the same ones, who argued earlier (laughs).’ Complementing each other apart from arguments too and understanding like sisters is important for us, be it life, or court,” says 17-year-old Parida while speaking with The Indian Express.

It was a search for settling into an academy fit for them which led to the two starting training together in 2020 at the Odisha-SAI Regional Academy in Bhubaneswar.

While Kolkatan Parida, whose father is a video journalist, started playing badminton at a court near her home, Toppo’s badminton dreams started in the steel town of Rourkela.

Toppo’s father works in the Rourkela Steel Plant and the youngest among three girls, two of whom are engineers, she would be initiated into sports. “Both my sisters wanted to be engineers but I wanted to pursue sports. I trained under Mohammad Haseem sir at Rourkela for two years before I decided to give trials for SAI Academy in Bhubaneswar,” says Toppo.

For Parida, it was her coach at Kolkata, who advised her to seek professional training and the youngster would train at Gopichand Academy in Hyderabad for some months before spending two years in Mehsana to train under former junior world number 1 Tasneem Mir’s father. “My coach in Kolkata, Vadhyanath sir advised my father to get me professional training as he found my strokes as a natural ability. While I trained at Hyderabad as well as Mehsana, I also realised that I am not good at singles,” says Parida.

It was at Odisha-SAI Regional Academy in 2020 that coach Dileep Panchati would put the two in doubles and started training them. With Parida good at net play and Toppo good at back of the court, the coach would make them train for their specific strengths.

“The first and foremost thing Dileep sir emphasized on was our on-court and off-court understanding. He would make us practice through different simulations, also insisting I spend time on my back court game too and Vishakha on her net game too as it can come handy,” says Parida.

While the pair has been training at the National Centre of Excellence Guwahati since last one year, they have two final appearances in the junior ranking tournaments apart from a round of 16 appearance in the senior nationals. Parida also competed in the Asian Sub-junior Championships in Chengdu last year with Bhargav Ram Arigela, where they reached the quarters apart from winning the mixed doubles title in last year’s U17 nationals in Hyderabad.

“Russian coach Ivan Sozonov along with coaches Sayam Shukla and Saurabh Sharma make us understand that defense too is important in doubles. They also have been focusing on getting the drive and smashes perfect and make us practice those shots 200-300 times per day,” says Toppo.

As for their favourite doubles pair, the duo is quick to say in unison about two different doubles players, “We both like to watch matches of Chiharu Shida playing with her doubles partner and Yuki Fukushima with her doubles partner. Both have less power but rely on their defence to compliment their respective doubles partner. And to talk of the chemistry of one single doubles pair, we like to watch Paris Olympics champions Chen Qingchen and Jia Yifan of China,” say the duo.