Pullela Gopichand appreciates Saina Nehwal’s elevated performance at Swiss Open Grand Prix Gold
India’s national coach Pullela Gopichand appreciated the elevated performance of Saina Nehwal, who secured her first title of current year by winning the Swiss Open Grand Prix Gold 2012, which ended on Sunday, March 18, in Switzerland.
The former All England Open winner Gopichand stated that Saina displayed a sensational performance against Wang Shixian of China in the final showdown of the tournament and proved her worth in an emphatic manner.
The World Number Five Saina, who has been desperately looking for a major title for the last 12 months, finally got it as she won the Swiss Open.
Saina was the defending champion in this event and lived up to expectations by winning it for the second time in a row.
Saina has been putting extra effort in her training sessions for the last few months and also made small changes in her technical and tactical aspects of play.
In the title match of Swiss Open, the Indian played different badminton and remained successful in beating the World Number Three Shixian in straight games.
Gopichand was quite satisfied with the improvements Saina showed in the court. He said that Saina played with wonderful aggression and also remained focused in the prolonged rallies against the Chinese shuttler.
The coach said, “She was very attacking from the beginning in this match. And though Shixian engaged her in long rallies and was playing well, today Saina asserted herself with fantastic domination from the back of the court. She was also superlative at
the net.”
While talking about China’s domination in the Women’s Singles category, Gopichand commented that for winning a title in any main tournament, you need to beat two or three Chinese shuttlers in your way to victory.
He said, “Titles don’t come easily these days, and you have to get past 2-3 Chinese for every Sunday victory in any tournament. We’ve made a few changes to her game. But Saina has to plan for 5-6 Chinese every week.”
Saina is the only hope for India to win a medal at Olympic Games and a recent victory in Swiss Open has boosted her confidence and she is expected to maintain her current form in the mega event.
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