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Business News/ News / Business Of Life/  Saina Nehwal | A year in waiting
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Saina Nehwal | A year in waiting

Nehwal returns to Odense where she last won a badminton singles title, hoping to end a long drought

Saina Nehwal is currently world’s No.4, having slipped from second position in June. Photo: Jasjeet Plaha/Hindustan TimesPremium
Saina Nehwal is currently world’s No.4, having slipped from second position in June. Photo: Jasjeet Plaha/Hindustan Times

BANGALORE :

Outside the Radisson Blu HC Andersen Hotel in Odense where Saina Nehwal stayed last year during the Yonex Denmark Open badminton event, is a life-size metal sculpture of Hans Christian Andersen. The legendary writer of fairy tales sits comfortably on a bench, so that one can sit alongside and appear to have a conversation with him, for a photo keepsake. A stone’s throw away is the house he grew up in, now converted to a museum.

Odense, the town that hosts the Denmark Open, is a picturesque place, and one of its claims to fame is Andersen. The town pays homage to its most famous son through the museum, a marathon in his name, and several other reminders scattered around.

It is to this town that Nehwal will return, a year after she won her last tournament.

A year is a long time in sport. Last year, when Nehwal arrived in Odense, she had won her country’s first Olympic bronze medal in badminton. A week later, she would stand on the podium, having won the tournament without dropping a game. She would carry that confidence into the French Open soon after, continuing her stirring run at Paris and finishing runner-up.

During the course of that magical fortnight in Odense, Nehwal might have felt she, like Andersen, was creating her own fairy tale. No Indian had won the title since Prakash Padukone in 1980. The Olympic bronze had changed everything for Nehwal—she appeared cocooned in confidence, almost indifferent to the temporary fluctuations in each match. She was fast and strong, throwing herself into every point. She was also remarkably calm in the heat of battle, smiling occasionally at her own errors. It was a different Nehwal than the one who would remonstrate at herself at every missed opportunity. She was in the zone all through.

“It wasn’t easy," Nehwal said after the final, although she had won it fairly easily, 21-17 21-8 over Germany’s Juliane Schenk. “The title means a lot to me. It’s like a fairy tale. My right knee is not perfect, and I never expected to win. I thank my fans for the energy, and thanks to all the Indians who cheered for me today." She was referring to the 30-odd Indians who had turned up for the final, making a racket worthy of 300.

She’d entered the tournament, she said, with some knee trouble, but she showed no infirmities on court as she brushed aside one opponent after another. “At all tournaments, I have to be fit, because girls run a lot, they make you move a lot. So you have to be 100% fit when you play at the highest level."

Unlike last year, however, this year will see Nehwal in an unfamiliar position. It’s October and she hasn’t won a tournament all year—if she doesn’t win at Denmark (the tournament started on Tuesday and ends on Sunday), it will be the first time in her senior international career that she’s gone 12 months without a title. The statistic might appear to be irrelevant, but it does indicate the vicissitudes of top-level sport, and the intensity of competition in the elite ranks of women’s singles.

Nehwal might not have won a title all year, but her record has been healthy. She made the semi-finals of three Superseries and one Grand Prix Gold, and that has helped her remain in the top 5 rankings. What might worry her are the inconsistent performances in between, such as the shock second-round upset at the India Open, and third-round losses to lower-ranked players at Thailand, Singapore and Guangzhou (World Championships).

The Denmark Open isn’t the easiest place to return to title-winning form. Unlike several Superseries events since the Olympics which the top Chinese skipped, the Denmark Open has attracted all the top stars.

No.4 ranked Nehwal should have it easy until the quarter-finals (she won her first round match on Wednesday). Her opponent in the last eight could be South Korea’s Sung Ji Hyun or Japan’s Sayaka Takahashi; either opponent can trouble her, but Nehwal should pull through if she plays close to her best.

From the semi-finals onwards, it will be a different proposition. Olympic champion Li Xuerui (China), Swiss Open champion Wang Shixian (China) and exciting young talent Carolina Marin (Spain) are in her half of the draw. If the defending champion makes it to the final, she can expect to meet Asian champion Wang Yihan (China), World Champion Ratchanok Intanon (Thailand) or eighth seed Tai Tzu Ying (Chinese Taipei). If Nehwal can retain her title in the face of such competition, it will be a special moment for Indian badminton, since no Indian has managed to defend a major title in Europe.

She heads a strong Indian contingent. Indian teams hardly caused a ripple in earlier times, but these days it is different, especially in the singles. Nehwal’s compatriot P.V. Sindhu is in the lower half of the draw and has some tough encounters lined up, starting with Japanese veteran Eriko Hirose and a possible second round clash with the prodigious talent Ying.

In the men’s singles, P. Kashyap, Guru Sai Dutt and Ajay Jayaram are in the main draw, while qualifying will see four Indians: Anand Pawar, H.S. Prannoy, K. Srikanth and Sourabh Varma. The quality of competition in men’s singles is even, and a strong Indian presence in the quarter-finals is a possibility. Jayaram, Srikanth and Prannoy were quarter-finalists at the Japan Open Super Series in September, and the Indians will be confident of a similar performance. However, with the top two seeds Lee Chong Wei (Malaysia) and Chen Long (China) heading the opposite ends of the draw, few other contenders will give themselves hope of challenging for the title.

Dev S. Sukumar is a Bangalore-based writer and the author of a biography of Prakash Padukone, Touch Play.

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Published: 16 Oct 2013, 07:16 PM IST
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