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Pullela Gopichand is the National Badminton coach
Anup Shridhar,who reached a career world rank of 29(as on 23 August 07),says -I have the best people around in Prakash Padukone and Pullela Gopichand to guide me at this stage of my career

Pullela Gopichand --fast facts

Pullela Gopichand (India)


Pullela Gopichand (born on November 16,1973 in Nagandla, Andhra Pradesh) is an Indian Badminton player.

Gopichand won the All England Open Badminton Championships in 2001 defeating Chen Hong of China in the finals. He became the second Indian to achieve this feat after Prakash Padukone, who won it in 1980.


In 1989 he won his first single title at the National Championship at Goa and then went on to win the doubles championship also

Gopichand is a five-time National Champion.

After doing well in the national circuit, Gopi Chand produced further proof of his class by reaching the finals of the Indian Open, a grand prix event, held in New Delhi in early 1997.


He has won gold medals in the SAARC Tournaments in Vijayawada in 1996 and in Colombo in 1997

He played a stellar role in helping India put up a great show at the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur where they picked up four medals.
Gopichand won Bronze in Men's singles,and Silver in the team event

By 1999, Gopichand achieved a world ranking of 26 winning the Indian international, Scottish, Toulouse open etc.
Was the runner up in the French Open Singles in 1999
He received the SAARC gold medal the same year.

Gopichand has 4 gold medals in SAARC games

He has won the Toulouse Open in France and the Scottish Open in Scotland, both in 1999.

He also won the Asian Satellite tournament held at Hyderabad in 1999 and was runners-up in the Austrian Open and German Grand Prix played in 1998 and 1999 rrespectively.

In 2000, riding piggyback on Gopi's performance, India reached the final of the Thomas Cup after a gap of 12 years.

The year 2000 saw him become the only Indian shuttler ever to reach the semi-finals of three of the biggest Asian events; defeat world No 1 Taufique Hidayat of Indonesia in a league match in the Ipoh Masters in November and also qualify to play in the US $350,000 World Grand Prix finals at Brunei in February 2001.

He also won the Syed Modi memorial championship in Lucknow

He won the All England Open Badminton Championships in 2001
He defeated Olympic Gold medallist Anders Boeson in the Quarterfinals of this tournament. In the Semifinals he defeated no. 1 seeded player Peter Gade of Denmark, and in the finals he defeated Chen Hong of China.

Gopichand reached a world ranking of 6 in January 2001

Gopichand achieved his career best world ranking of 4 in 2001.

Gopichand was awarded the 'Arjuna Award' in 1999

He was awarded the 'Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna',India's highest
sporting honour for the year 2000-01

In 2005, he was awarded the Padma Shri.

Now, he runs the Pullela Gopichand badminton academy.

In May 2006 Pulella Gopichand was officially appointed coach of the national badminton team.