Saina Nehwal defends her title at Swiss Open Grand Prix Gold 2012 – Badminton news
India’s impressive shuttler Saina Nehwal defended her Women’s Singles title by beating China’s Wang Shixian in the final encounter of German Open Grand Prix Gold 2012 at Basel, Switzerland, on Sunday, March 18.
The 22-year-old Saina, who has been passing through a bad patch for the last one year because of a series of injuries, found her winning flow back as she did not face any trouble in beating Shixian, who is World Number Three at the moment.
Currently, the Indian seems in a perfect condition as she has fully recovered from her injuries and is ready to take bigger challenges as it is Olympic year.
In the final battle of Swiss Open, the World Number Five Saina showed a wonderful performance as she did not let her Chinese opponent to dictate the pace of game at any stage and won the contest in straight sets by taking 48 minutes.
After the match, Saina said, “I am extremely happy. This win has come after a long time and at an important time for me considering this is an Olympic year. I am satisfied the way my game has progressed and I hope to continue the form.”
She further added, “I hadn’t played Shixian for a long time, and things got a little tight at the end of the first set. But I’m glad I could wrap it up in straight games, because I’ve been dragged into deciders too often.”
Saina has finally got rid of her bad patch and has also ended her title drought after a period of 12 months.
She delivered phenomenal performance in the title match of Swiss Open and did not show any sign of nervousness in both games.
On the other hand, Shixian was not at her best as she could not play dominating badminton.
The Chinese gave a good fight but not enough to escape defeat from the hands of her lower ranked Indian opponent.
Saina, recently turned 22, showed a remarkable performance and won the battle with an impressive 21-19 and 21-16 score on the board.
With this victory, the Indian has got her first title of current year and is looking forward to continue her elevated run in 2012 Olympic Games which will take place in July-August at London.
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