Pullela Gopichand

Some Lesser Known Facts About Pullela Gopichand

• Does Pullela Gopichand smoke?: No

• Does Pullela Gopichand drink alcohol?: Not Known

• Pullela used to play cricket earlier, but once he suffered from a sunstroke while playing cricket throughout the day, after which his brother introduced him to badminton when he was 10 years old.

• When he was 13 years old, he ruptured a ligament, but same year after a surgery he won the singles and the doubles titles in an inter-school competition.

• To get the best racquet for him to play, his mother sold her jewellery and bought him a racquet.

• In 1989,  he won his 1st single title at the National Championship at Goa.

• In 1996, he won his 1st international singles title at SAARC games in Vijayawada.

• He won his 1st National Championship title in 1996, and won it for 5 years consecutively till 2000.

• In 2001, he became the 2nd Indian to win the All England Open Badminton Championships after Prakash Padukone (father of Deepika Padukone).

• In 2003, he founded Gopichand Badminton Academy in Hyderabad with lot of difficulties as he had to mortgage his house for that.

• He trained Indian badminton stars like Saina Nehwal, Jwala Gutta, P. Kashyap and P.V. Sindhu, Srikanth Kidambi, Tarun Kona  at the Gopichand Badminton Academy.

• He is the recipient of prestigious awards such as the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna, Arjuna and Padma Shri Award.

• In 2011, he released his biography The World Beneath His Feat, which was written by former national badminton champion and coach Sanjay Sharma and his daughter, Shachi. 

• He is the follower of spiritual Guru Sri Sri Ravishankar from The Art of Living.

• In 2016, his hard work as a coach paid off when P.V. Sindhu won the Silver Medal at the Rio Olympics, and became the 1st Indian badminton player to do so.