Badminton: Priyanshu Rajawat displays growing maturity as he reaches maiden Super 300 final

It was against Belgian Julien Carraggi at the same Orleans Masters venue Palais des Sports last year that Priyanshu Rajawat had botched a match rushing into his strokes, unable to temper his aggressive speed. On Saturday playing Irish Nhat Nguyen a year later at Orleans, Rajawat displayed a controlled game without forsaking his attack to win 21-12, 21-9 and reach his maiden Super 300 final.
He plays Danish southpaw Magnus Johannesen in the final on Sunday.
Rajawat’s attack was near flawless – there were straight smashes on the lines, there were round-the-head straight hits with a far more impressive thwack on them, hit deep and there were the cross winners as he totally outplayed Nguyen with his strokes. His trademark quick turns from the back for backhand set-up shots and the sharp clears foxed his opponent.

What a rally from Priyanshu Rajawat 🇮🇳 and Nhat Nguyen 🇮🇪!
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But in what has been a year’s improvement, it was in the construction of rallies that Rajawat displayed the growing maturity – his willingness to play the two extra shots necessary before getting himself in position for a kill. While he would hurry too much earlier unable to control his speed, here he was in absolute mastery over his own movements, getting to the shuttle early and selecting the perfect shots.
Nguyen led 5-2 in the opener, but never after that as Rajawat took off with a smash-fest opening up a yawning gap. In fact, 6-5 would be a rather significant rally, with Rajawat doing all the hard defending before he killed it with a peach of a cross winner. At 18-11, he would pick the shuttle inches off the floor and send it in a parabola over the net for another impressive winner. Nguyen’s nervousness was evident when he served into the net to give Rajawat the 11-9 lead in the first.
Priyanshu would start the second set in the same vein with a round-the-head smash. Such was the ferocity of his attack, he would run up an 18-3 lead in the second against the hapless Nguyen. The Irishman would save four match points but went down 21-9 in straight sets as he had no answers to Rajawat’s clean smashes.
“Even when he was caught out of position, he played good neutral strokes. But overall it was a good attacking display with sharp power strokes,” coach N Anil Kumar, who has coached him since Gwalior’s Gopichand academy said. “In the previous tournaments, he used to rush. But at Orleans he has the shuttle under control,” the coach added.

All hail the Raja-wat 👑
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Sameer Verma’s influence
His game might look modelled after Kidambi Srikanth’s at the Gopichand Academy since Rajawat has a similar attacking arsenal. But Rajawat had spoken about being influenced the reflex defence of state-mate Sameer Verma. On Saturday, he worked up some fine net deception to put himself in attacking positions.
Priyanshu started playing badminton aged 6, following older brother Kunal to the courts at Dhar in Madhya Pradesh. A scrawny kid then, his hand and leg speed were mighty impressive and he got scouted out for Pullela Gopichand’s Gwalior academy as early as 8. Speed was both his strength and weakness, for he couldn’t channelise it initially and didn’t have the strength to kill the shuttle in his teen years. “Gopichand sir would stand behind and keep telling me to be patient.
He’d pointed out the make very early and asked me to start meditation because I was too impatient,” he had said in an interview earlier. “Being too fast is a problem. When the shuttle is fast, I’m trying to finish points quickly and I’m at the net suddenly and …”
All this week though, he’s shown terrific control over the shuttle and accuracy, starting with a win over Kiran George and then taking out top seed Kenta Nishimoto. The Japanese pushed the pace in the second, but Rajawat managed to keep his strokes inside the court.
Priyanshu’s father, originally hailing from Rajasthan, ran a Xerox business in Dhar, and his mother is a homemaker. He started out in football, but has been smitten the badminton racquet as soon as he started. The 21-year-old has been living away from home since 8, and now trains at the Hyderabad academy. Laidback earlier, the two years of international play lost to COVID, hastened his awareness to turn more serious about the game as it delayed his transition to the seniors. The march into finals will push him closer to the Top 40s. Johannesen stands in the way of a first Super 300 title.