Ace shuttler, master of ‘spin service’ Satish Bhatia, passes away; fraternity mourns loss

Deepankar Sharda

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Chandigarh, March 13

Wing Commander Satish Bhatia (retd), former Indian badminton player credited with devising the banned “spin service”, breathed his last after a prolonged illness on Wednesday. He was 81.

Bhatia, who had served with the UT Sports Department as a badminton coach, played the Thomas Cup thrice (during 1963, 1966 and 1969), remained Junior World Champion in 1960s and played Asian Games and Commonwealth Games in 1970s.

Aarti, his daughter, said, “He was known in the badminton circles as a left-handed singles exponent with the deadly ‘spin service’. Some players believed he could only spin Indian shuttles like Skylark, Albatross and Jabico. But he claimed to do the forehand ‘spin service’ with an upright shuttle, cutting across the cork (as opposed to the eventually banned backhand ‘Sidek’ serve with an upside-down shuttle, cutting across the feathers) even with the internationally used RSL shuttles.”

Bhatia, who had turned 81 this month, would always be open to talk about badminton. “I saw Satish play in 1968 against Rudy Hartono, who was already a two-time All-England champion. The handsome southpaw employed his trademark forehand spin service against Rudy and literally drove him crazy. Whatever the Indonesian did (and he even tried rushing and tapping the serve), he simply could not control the return of the serve, and trailed 1-14, game-point, in the first game,” said Shirish Nadkarni, one of his followers.

The secret

Whenever this correspondent asked Bhatia about the secret of his “spin service”, he would often laugh and say, “No, I won’t be telling you the secret. Otherwise, you are going to defeat me on the court.” No matter what, a jolly Bhatia would always meet youngsters with a big smile and encourage them to adopt badminton.

Bhatia suffered from cancer for long before he breathed his last on Wednesday. “This is a huge loss for the badminton fraternity. He was an inspiration for many,” said Surinder Mahajan, joint secretary, Badminton Association of India (BAI), and general secretary, Chandigarh Badminton Association (CBA). Bhatia had the honour of flying nearly 6,000 hours and flew Devnos and Dakotas initially.