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Ask any badminton fan in India to name top five doubles specialists in the country and I am sure a vast majority will not go beyond a certain Jwala Gutta. And it would be interesting to know how many of them remember her exploits on the badminton court and how many can only list the juicy stories about the 27-year-old’s lifestyle.Jwala and Ashwini Ponnappa created history at the Commonwealth Games when they became India’s first doubles combination ever to win a gold medal. In fact, before them India had never managed to win any doubles medal in the competition.But soon after the triumph , Jwala went on record accusing the then Badminton Association of India (BAI) president V K Verma of not even congratulating them for the title, sexy dresses while another gold medallist Saina Nehwal took all the accolades for her exploits.While Saina deserved all the attention she received, Jwala and her partner were justified in their rage against the establishment.Doubles has been a neglected discipline in Indian badminton for over five decades now. BAI takes recourse in the argument that we don’t have enough talent in that department. But remind them about the fact that India’s only mixed doubles pair to break into the world top-10 rarely trains together and would have gone no where had they lacked the talent to play doubles, the officials scurry for cover.Unlike in other racquet sports where doubles is a supplementary discipline to singles, badminton gives equal importance to the three doubles events in individual and team championships. In fact, India has struggled in the Commonwealth Games and Asian Games or other team championship since no country can win the team events without a strong doubles combination.Jwala and Ashwini Ponnappa (in the background) created history at the Commonwealth Games when they became India’s first doubles combination ever to win a gold medal. But the BAI never congratulated the winners. AFPIndia’s poor record in the Thomas and Uber Cup as well as the Sudirman Cup mixed team championship can be attributed to the lack of quality in doubles. And out of the four times India advanced to the Thomas Cup final, singles specialists -Prakash Padukone (1980) and Pullela Gopichand (2000) -had to play doubles.But BAI officials have never bothered to promote doubles or doubles players and Jwala and her ilk are perfectly justified in accusing the authorities of meting out step motherly treatment to them.Take for example the felicitation functions in December 2009. The year had been a watershed season for singles star Saina and the mixed doubles combination of Jwala and V Diju, both of whom had stormed into the world top-10 riding on some sensational performances.But when Jwala and Diju reached Lucknow for the Syed Modi Grand Prix they learnt that the BAI had decided to felicitate only Saina for her achievements while there was not even a mention of their exploits. It was only after Jwala threatened to withdraw from the tournament that the apex body added their name to the felicitation list, but the pair was paid a prize purse of Rs one lakh each while Saina was handed a cash award of Rs 5 lakh.The same story was repeated in Guwahati a few weeks later. Since then the senior nationals are hopelessly biased towards the singles stars in terms of prize money. In Guwahati buzz lightyear costume , the singles champions bagged a Maruti A-star and a SX4 the year later in Rohtak, while the doubles winners went home with Rs 10,000 each.The structure is better in the ranking tournament. However, there is hardly any encouragement for doubles specialists.The other problem is when the tours are sanctioned, doubles specialists are always given secondary citizen treatment with administrators to looking to send only the singles stars for international competition.When Gopi Chand took over as the national coach, he promised to change the situation by forcing talented doubles players to quit playing singles and arranged long national camps for them to practice together.But four years down the line, best cosplay costumes we still don’t have a formidable second combination in women and mixed doubles. The domestic competition in men’s doubles is of a better standard but they are nowhere near to challenge the international stars. In fact, some of them have already stopped playing doubles and are concentrating on singles, content at playing in the domestic circuit.Though Gopi Chand’s intentions were good, he forgot to address the basic problem for doubles in India. We do not have quality doubles coaches in the country who can work on the technique of these players. Singles and doubles require completely different techniques starting from the grip which explains why Gopi Chand’s predecessor U Vimal Kumar had forced BAI to employ the services of Hadi Sugiyanto to train the doubles stars.It was during Sugiyanto’s tenure that the men’s doubles combination of Sanave Thomas and Rupesh Kumar and the mixed doubles team of Diju and Jwala began performing on the international stage.The sports ministry paid the Indonesian $2500 per month for his services but the BAI failed to utilise him in the best possible way. Sugiyanto spent most of his time holidaying in Bangalore since the national camps were held only before major tournaments and there were no top players to train during the remaining period.During his initial days in India, Sugiyanto did propose to travel across the country to train doubles specialists at various centres and also conduct camps for coaches. But the BAI officials were not ready to spend money on such tours and the Indonesian also lost interest thereafter.But players who trained under him during his four-year tenure vouch that no coach in India has the knowledge of the multi feeding technique required for doubles. At the national camps, seniors used to double up as feeders and hence have lost interest in attending camps now.The current doubles stars are likely to hang their boots in the next couple of years and unfortunately, not a single pair can currently put its hand up and claim that they are ready to take on the mantle.There is also a need to popularise doubles as the discipline has the ability to mesmerise the spectator with speed and long rallies, something that has been achieved successfully in Europe.A new team will be taking over the BAI from July 2 and hopefully they will have the will to address the problem or India would continue to face the double trouble in important tournaments.