‘Gabrielle’s injury derailed our campaign’

For starters, the badminton fans of Chennai were overjoyed that they could get to watch some of the international stars, apart from their own favourite PV Sindhu, in action for the first time in three years. But what really triggered the fan frenzy was the fact that Smashers was the defending champion after making a mockery of all its opposition in the previous edition. 

In such a scenario, what transpired was nothing short of a disaster as the team from Chennai failed to even make it to the semi-finals. That it could manage only a seventh-placed finish in the eight-team league was a further cause for agony. 

Sindhu aside, Chennai also had in its ranks a leading mixed doubles pairing in Chris Adcock along with his wife Gabrielle and with such a power-packed team, hopes of retaining the trophy were only par for the course. One major saving grace for the Smashers was that it won both its home matches against Ahmedabad Smash Masters and Bengaluru Blasters.

The assistant coach of Smashers, Arun Vishnu, felt that his team's unexpected reversal to Delhi Dashers tilted the tide against Chennai. "We were very much in the reckoning for a place in the last four until we ran into Delhi. Although Sindhu lost in a tense match, what hurt us more was the unfortunate injury withdrawal of Gabrielle Adcock in the crucial mixed doubles tie which was also our trump match. That was a match we could have won and those two points would have made a lot of difference," bemoaned the 29-year-old.

Vishnu, though, admitted that even allowing for any bad luck through injuries, with the quality they had the Smashers should have breezed through the league phase. "We started off slowly and just when we were peaking at the right time, we were let down by a couple of defeats like the one we saw against Ahmedabad when our player Brice Leverdez lost to Sourabh Verma despite holding multiple match points. Things like that didn't help our cause but I can assure you that we will come back much stronger next year," added Vishnu.