Tanisha continues her badminton journey at home

Tanisha Crasto trains at the Pullela Gopichand Badminton Academy, in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad. - KT photo

These are unprecedented and uncertain times the world is facing with the coronavirus pandemic bringing almost anything and everything to a grinding halt.
As such, the sporting world too has been thrown into chaos with events cancelled or postponed and athletes left to their own devices, without any action.
Most of them are striving to stay in shape in the hope that they will be in peak fitness when things return to normalcy.
And one among them is rising badminton star Tanisha Crasto.
The junior India No.1 in doubles, returned home to Dubai early last month, just in time before things got worse and before the travel restrictions came into effect.
And the 16-year-old has been following a schedule mapped out by her academy - the Pullela Gopichand Badminton Academy, where she trains in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, to stay fit and in game shape.
"I came back on March 4. My mom was quite worried and I think the flights were also about to close down. She just got me back as soon as possible," Tanisha told the Khaleej Times on Saturday.
Tanisha said that the situation that she and many other players find themselves has been tough but added that they have managed to adapt.
"It is not easy because we can't really go out or we can't really go and play on the badminton court. We have to be at home. We have to manage our fitness, our diet, everything at home, so it is quite difficult. A lot of things were going on in my head," she revealed.
But she said that the support from her academy, run by 2001 All England champion Gopichand, has been immense.
"Since we have a whatsapp group, our academy has kept video call sessions where a teacher gives us workouts and we have Gopi sir himself who sends in workouts. We get our workouts every night and even in the morning for the evening workouts," said Tanisha, who joined the academy almost a year ago.
"So, basically, we have two sessions that happen, one in the morning, one in the evening. The first one is from 7 to 8.30 in the morning and the second at 4 in the evening. In the morning, we usually start off with breathing, then meditation, a bit of movement workouts, core workouts, wall practice and visualisation. Evening is more or less the same with wall practice and a lot of agility workouts and visualisation," she explained.
Tanisha, who represented India at the World Junior Championship in 2018 and 2019, also revealed that she and 30 other players in India are also on a video call with a trainer from the academy.
Tanisha said that her game has improved by leaps and bounds ever since she joined the Academy.
"Gopi sir does come down sometimes to train us (before this situation). But we also have a lot of other coaches. It has been really, really nice. My performance has improved since I've joined the academy. There have been a lot of changes like my diet, my routine, my fitness. Everything has changed and it has changed for the good. I've been doing much better since then," Tanisha said.
Tanisha is a Grade 12 student at the Indian High School in Dubai, but with her spending most of her time in India, she is under the Rahhal scheme, a concept rolled out by the government that allows part-time schooling.
james@khaleejtimes.com