New Delhi, March 19 (IANS) India’s top doubles shuttler Ashwini Ponnappa wants to leave behind her dismal performance at the Swiss Open and All-England and is confident of a better show with partner Jwala Gutta at the $250,000 India Open Super Series to be held here April 1-6.
The 24-year-old, who will be defending her women’s doubles title with Jwala at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, was ousted from the All-England qualifiers and the first round of the Swiss Open in the last couple of weeks.
“The results have not been up to the mark recently but I feel we as a team are getting there. You also have seen that we got tough draws. Hopefully, we can put up a better show at India Open,” Ashwini told IANS here Wednesday at a Red Bull promotional event.
“We had a really tough match at All-England. Though we lost, we got confidence with the way we played. Matches like those make us feel we are heading in the right direction. For us, it is just about getting better and better.”
When asked about how long is she planning to partner Jwala, the 2011 World Championship bronze medallist said that she is taking it as it comes.
“I am taking it as it comes and not thinking about the future of the partnership. One reason we did well at the Commonwealth Games and the World Championships was that we played a lot of tournaments before those events. Even then we were not playing well, we got better as the CWG came along. Jwala was also at her peak then,” added the Bangalorean, who partners Tarun Kona in the mixed doubles.