Double Olympic medalist PV Sindhu lost a tough contest against South Korea’s Kim Ga-Eun in the Round of 32 women’s singles clash in Birmingham on Wednesday.
After taking the first game by a narrow margin, Sindhu struggled to claw back as the South Korean clinched a 21-19, 13-21, 13-21 victory.
It was the second consecutive occasion when Sindhu struggled under her new coach Irwansyah Adi Pratama. The Hyderabad shuttler had lost in the first round of the Indonesia Masters 2025 in January.
“Right now I am training with coach Irwansyah in Bengaluru, it has been just one and a half weeks. Basically, he is the women’s singles coach and also he is training some young boys as well,” Sindhu told reporters on the eve of the India Open 2025 badminton tournament.
“I am really looking forward to it. We have recently started. The bonding is important between coach and athlete, it will take time. We will need a couple of training sessions to come together and understand what he’s thinking,” PV Sindhu added.
Sindhu has changed multiple coaches after Tokyo 2020.
After South Korean coach Park Tae-Sang, she trained under Malaysia’s Muhammad Hafiz Hashim before moving with Vidhi Choudhary and coached Indonesian legend Agus Dwi Santoso.
The Hyderabad shuttler was mentored by Prakash Padukone in Paris 2024 while Anup Sridhar and Korea’s Lee Hyun-il were her personal coaches till December.
It remains to be seen how she performs under Irwansyah at the Swiss Open 2025, where she is seeded seventh.