PV Sindhu decided to distance herself from the comments made by her former national team colleague Jwala Gutta, who took to social media to allege “mental harassment” by an unnamed coach.

However, on the whole, the Olympic medallist lent her support to the recent MeToo campaign in the social media. The ace shuttler, who was in the capital on Wednesday to attend a promotional, said: “I appreciate that people have come forward and spoken about it. I respect it.”

On being probed if she was aware of any such incident in her sport, the Hyderabad girl said: “Well I don’t know about seniors and coaches. As far as I am concerned, it’s been fine and good for me.”

Jwala, on Tuesday, wrote: “Maybe I should talk about the mental harassment I had to go through. Since 2006, this person became the chief... Threw me out of national team inspite of me being a national champion. The latest was when I returned from Rio, I am out of national team again. One of the reasons I stopped playing!!”

“So when this person couldn’t get through to me... He threatened my partners, harassed them... Made sure to isolate me in every manner... Even after Rio... The one who I was gonna play mixed (doubles) with was threatened… And I was just thrown out of the team,” Jwala added.

Jwala, once a national champion in singles and a highly successful doubles player later, had always been known as a kind of rebel character in Indian badminton. A medal winner in doubles in the World Championship, she had remained critical of functioning in Indian badminton and accused the authorities of giving less importance to doubles players.