Olympics hope dashed, is this the end of Saina Nehwal era?

At 31, Saina Nehwal faces an uncertain future. Badminton is a highly intensive intermittent sport. The biggest challenge for her is to find a way to survive in her discipline. As injuries prevented her from making entry into Tokyo 2020, the imminent question is now - What would be her next move? Sudipta Biswas writes...

Hyderabad: On May 28, when the Badminton World Federation (BWF) sealed the Race to Olympic Ranking system, stating that there would be no further events before the June 15 deadline due to a raging pandemic, this effectively dashed shuttler Saina Nehwal’s hope of making entry into Tokyo 2020.

After three successive Olympic appearances, Indian badminton’s first superstar of the 21st century, Saina Nehwal, will now miss the mega quadrilateral event in Tokyo for the first time, which has marked the fall of her famed métier.

At 31, the former World No. 1 women’s singles specialist, Saina, faces an uncertain future. As the pandemic prevented her from competing in qualifying events, the most important question is now - What is next for her? Will she take a call on her career?

For someone as gritty as Saina, commenting on any possibility poses a different challenge.

As per the BWF rule, only the top 16 players can qualify for the Olympics. In that context, Saina was well outside the reach of Race to Tokyo rankings, at 22. And her recent form suggested that, even if the seven remaining Olympic qualifiers had held, she would not have made it to the Games.

Saina Nehwal has won 11 Super Series titles in her one and a half-decade old career which is the most for an Indian shuttler.

With 437 wins in 637 matches, which counted over 60 per cent, Saina has had a remarkable career. She has nothing to prove now. She has achieved greatness for herself and gave Indian badminton a new dimension during the course of her two decades old career. But for a champion shuttler like Saina leaving the court head down doesn't present the best of the case scenario, so, it seems, she is unlikely to hang her kits anytime soon. There is no doubt that she is a fighter, and she will continue to fight till the very end of her distinguished career, until taking the court by storm one more time.

Rise and Rise

The 2012 London Olympics bronze medallist had made her Olympic debut in 2008. Months before the Beijing Olympics, Saina created a ripple in the Indian women’s singles when she won the coveted World Junior Badminton Championships gold, knocking out Japanese Sayaka Sato in straight games. It was a remarkable achievement for the teenager.

At 18 years of age, Saina was already in the reckoning of success. Having won a number of junior titles – national and international, she has prepared herself for big things of badminton. She was touted to do something extraordinary which Indian badminton, in the realm of women’s singles, had never seen before.

In the China capital, though she was unseeded, the Hyderabadi shuttler didn’t disappoint the Indian badminton fraternity. After getting off to a promising start to her campaign, beating experienced cogs Ella Diehl of Russia and Larisa Griga of Ukraine, Saina was well set for pre-quarterfinals. There, she was up against Wang Chen at the Beijing University of Technology Gymnasium. In the All England Open in 2007, Saina had gone down to Chen. But this time, the Indian shuttler made the 32-year-old Hong Kong star sweat and eventually secured the marathon three-game match 21-19, 11-21, 21-11.

Just a year later, Saina clinched her career’s maiden Super Series title when she defeated Wang Lin of China in the Indonesia Open final in Jakarta, and in the process, she became the first Indian to achieve the feat. This was also the first time Saina breached the Chinese fortress which gave her unbounded joy and apposite confidence.

Four years later, when Saina, hardened by the game’s hardships, matured by experience, entered London’s Wembley arena, she was already an owner of four Super Series titles, which was an enviable achievement for any Indian shuttler at that time.

With her remarkable attainment, Saina had created a new badminton wave in India. Two years back in Birmingham, she became the first Indian woman to play the All England semifinal but lost to eventual champion Tine Baun of Denmark.

After Prakash Padukone, the 1980 All England men’s singles champion who revolutionized Indian badminton, and Pullela Gopichand, India's representative-in-chief during the late 1990s and the early 2000s, it was Saina Nehwal who emerged as the real ambassador of Indian badminton. She singlehandedly started a nationwide movement for the sport. She is a living embodiment of hope, power and happiness to her contemporaries and hundreds of junior shuttlers who look up to her for inspiration.

Notwithstanding, it was majorly due to her flashes of brilliance, India today have emerged as a major force to reckon with in international badminton. It will not be out of place to state that it was Saina who showed her successors the way of championing the world badminton early in this new millennium.

Overall, Saina played 637 matches and won 437, which is an enviable figure for any badminton player.

As she burst into the Top 3 in 2010 by beating Tai Tzu-Ying in the Singapore Open final and World Championships gold medallist Lu Lan earlier in the semifinal, Saina was regarded as India’s one of the strongest medal hopes in the London Games. As it happened, the youngster didn’t break the hearts of millions of Indian fans back home as she was garlanded with the bronze medal in the heart of London after China's Xin Wang retired hurt from the medal play-off.

Post her London success, she further honed her skills under the watchful gaze of Pullela Gopichand and later under Vimal Kumar to claim seven more Super Series title in three years. As Saina continued to break the defence of Chinese, Spanish, Japanese, Thai, Dane and Indonesian shuttlers, she went closer to the much-desired No. 1 ranking.

Already the face of Indian badminton, Saina enjoyed another stellar season in 2015 when she defeated Carolina Marin in the Syed Modi International final, lost the All England Open final to the Spaniard and then defeated Ratchanok Intanon in the India Open summit clash to become the first Indian woman to claim the pole position of BWF Women’s Singles rankings.

Imminent Downfall

However, as is the case with all the top athletes Saina too had to embrace the imminent downfall.

In a physically demanding sport like badminton, shuttlers always fight with injuries, their biggest enemy. For Saina as well, it was no different. During her legendary career in which she won 24 international titles, including 11 Super Series, Saina always has endured pain. When she was at her peak, it was not mainly her opponents who made her time in the court tough. The wily right-hander was bogged down by shoulder niggle, recurring stomach issues, leg blister, groin and ankle injuries. But Saina never complained. She accepted the blows, and then, with her fighting spirit, she smashed them to make her way back to where she belongs.

Saina’s run-in with injuries has always been a key highlight of her career, as was the case with her splendid performances. Until 2014 Saina negotiated her fitness issues rather comfortably. But after winning the Australian Open Super Series and China Open, things started moving downwards for her. In the same year, Saina withdrew herself from Commonwealth Games due to multiple injuries. From there on, Saina’s struggle with injuries has only mounted up, never gone down.

As she rose to the top echelon of world badminton, her spectacular game and abiding injuries, simultaneously, started making the headlines. On many occasions, she played with injuries and thrashed her opponents to heal her pain with medals. But in the long run, these recurring injuries turned out to be her biggest problem.

In April 2015, when Saina attained the World No. 1 ranking, an occasion that saw the culmination of her passion, hard work and dedication towards badminton, it had caused immense euphoria to the fans of Indian badminton. But, in the same year, sadly, her form started showing sign of decline.

Grappled by injuries, Saina lost her killer instinct. Her court movement became extremely slow due to pelvic and Achilles tendon, as a result; she ended up giving undue advantage to the younger players in match after match. Yet, she didn’t give up. Though her body continued to complain, Saina’s indomitable willing power refused to relent to that.

Even prior to Rio 2016, Saina had suffered a knee injury, yet she went ahead with her plan but had to return home in an embarrassing situation. She crashed out of the Olympics in the very first round, losing to unseeded Maria Ulitina 18-21, 19-21. Saina’s dream of improving upon her London bronze was boomed to bits by the Ukrainian. Her lethality was gone. She hid her injury. After her first game loss, she had to take a dexamethasone injection to keep pain in check. But it didn’t help her cause as she eventually lost the match. After the match, it was found that Saina suffered from a fat pad inflammation on her right knee.

What next?

As she aggravated her already fragile knee, Saina had to undergo surgery in Hyderabad upon returning from Rio de Janeiro. The knee never healed. She had to give a hefty price as the injury has left a lasting dent in her game.

Upon recovering from the career-threatening knee injury, she won Malaysia Masters, Commonwealth Games gold and Indonesia Masters but her inconsistency and difficulty in playing youngsters became apparent. Saina was no more in her best shape. After the operation, she never could gain the requisite amount of stamina and fitness, which further slowed her down.

Saina Nehwal is the first female shuttler from India to play the All England semi-final in 2010.

Had this recurrence of injury been avoided, her career could have been even longer. The fact is that neither Saina nor her coaches were found wise enough in her injury management, which eventually caught her up.

Now, as she is dwelling on the wrong side of the 30s and recurring injuries keeping her out of her best form, it seems the end is approaching for a brilliant senior level career that the shuttler has had for the last one and a half decades.

But, will Saina listen to the order of his body and hang her boots, or will she make use of the pandemic induced break to heal her injuries in order to make herself ready for a dreamy turnaround?

Badminton is a highly intensive intermittent sport. So, for Saina, now, the biggest challenge is to find a way to survive in her discipline, which is composed of young athletes.

Her childhood coach Syed Mohammed Arif doesn’t feel she will let her fade away easily from the sport which she loves dearly. For Saina, badminton is everything as it is the only thing she knows.

“She is downhill now after her operation in 2016, she still has given very good performances in recent times. But I feel she is getting trouble in facing the younger players now because she is already 31. Otherwise, Saina, in my opinion, is a very, very gritty player. All players in the world respect her because they know, even at the game point, Saina could come equal and make a turnaround in the match. But of late Saina failed to gain optimum fitness which required to perform at the top level,” said the former national chief badminton coach of India.

“But I don’t think she will take retirement now. I am telling you, she is a very determined girl. When she trained under me, unlike other children, she understood her game very early and always asked me for extra training. She was always very eager to push herself. So, she got the result and today she is a legend. To continue to play without injury in the future, Saina must be very selective with her choice of tournaments. She must understand her body very well and play accordingly. She got a wealth of experience, on plenty of occasions; she defeated players with that only, with minimum court coverage. But to beat the top players, she has to gain full fitness. I think which she can,” said the 77-year veteran badminton coach.

“An athlete can be downed by injuries for some time but not destroyed ever,” opined the veteran coach who produced stars like Pullela Gopichand and Jwala Gutta among others. Perhaps, there is no better epitaph for a shuttler as magnificent as Saina. The Haryana girl, who settled in Hyderabad to play badminton, might be taking a pledge for a much bigger challenge when her compatriots will be shouldering the Indian hopes in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics next month.