‘Anna, am nervous’ Anupama Upadhyaya and Sathish Karunakaran overcome panic to win on their India international debuts

Stepping out of PV Sindhu’s 5-foot-11 shadow can be very daunting.

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She might not have won any matches at the Sudirman Cup, but India’s singles coach Rahul Yadav, guided along two youngsters, who went from boggle eyed respect for Sindhu to absolute quaking fear to seeking in-spiration from India’s tallest shuttle figure, who cheered from the sidelines. This, they did by winning on their India inter-national debuts.First Anupama Upadhyaya walked upto Rahul and told him in the gym on the morning of the tie, that she was wracked by nerves and would be wretched if she couldn't win, while replacing Sindhu for the women's singles. Later, Sathish Karunakaran was 7-11 down against Harry Huang, who was nailing all the eyeball confrontations at the net, when he stumped the coach with the words “little panic”. Rahul was expecting something on those lines, but not, his main lead, men’s singles player to flat out admit: “Anna, I'm very nervous.”