If you see Aravind Bhat squinting his eyes intently and viciously muttering under his breath during his opener against Korean favourite Park Sung Hwan, don’t mistake it for bad manners. Far from being a brat, Bhat would be simply following the prescription of Ashlesh Rao, a Bangalore-based psychologist who has urged him to take up visualisation techniques and word-cues to finish matches.

Failing to deliver the knock-out punch has been the shuttler’s bane for some time now, with loss of focus from winning positions becoming a nagging problem. And Rao’s neuro-linguistic programme (NLP) is designed to deal with this affliction. “It’s silly, but it has happened too often this year to ignore. I get into comfortable positions — leading 15-6 or 7, and then lose it from there,” says the 43-ranked shuttler, now India’s lead challenger after Anup Sridhar’s withdrawal.

“I get to a point where I think I have him, and then I just fritter it away. People say my body language drops. NLP helps you programme the head with language cues. Repetition of words plays a trigger to previously won points.

“I should’ve gone to Ashlesh earlier, but I’m sure it’ll be of some help even now,” he says ahead of a tough match-up against the fourth seed. Bhat doesn’t mind that the odds are stacked against him. “I play better against the tough guys. I fancy my chances — I’ll take this any day,” he adds.

Though 2008 has been plagued by losses, Bhat believes he heads into the tournament playing as well as ever. “After my comeback last June — when I started again as an unranked player — I have climbed up to the 40s, with a few good wins and four international series titles in 2007-end. This year, there are no titles to show, but I’m playing well,” he says.

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