TIRUPATI: Ace shuttler Kidambi Srikanth who was promised to be allotted five acres of land by the state government of Andhra Pradesh to set up a world class badminton academy in Tirupati scouted for available land options in the temple city on Friday.
Srikanth, along with his family members, formally met Tirupati MP Dr M Gurumoorthy at his camp office in the city and held a brief discussion about his plans to establish a state-of-the-art badminton academy in the city. He later inspected available land options in the city for the proposed academy.
Speaking to TOI, Srikanth thanked Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy for immediately agreeing to his proposal and for agreeing to allocate five acres of land in Tirupati for the proposed badminton academy.
(TOI Photo)
"Pullela Gopichand Badminton Academy is considered a benchmark today. I want to set up a badminton academy on the similar lines to cater to the coaching needs of the players in the state of Andhra Pradesh and from other states across the country. My ultimate goal is to ensure world class badminton players are produced at this academy to represent the country at the international level", asserted Srikanth.
"Though I hail from Guntur, I had to relocate to Hyderabad for coaching as the state had no badminton academies then. I want to ensure that aspiring badminton players from our state need not go to other states in search of academies for coaching," he added.
Meanwhile, Srikanth said that he had recovered completely from his injury of the past and that his focus was now on securing a gold medal for India at the World Badminton championship scheduled next year.
Dr Gurumoorthy assured Srikanth of all necessary support on ground for establishing a world class badminton academy in Tirupati on the desired lines.
