Saina Nehwal finds her rhythm back at the right time – Badminton Feature
India’s top female player Saina Nehwal, who has been struggling hard to get rid of injuries and find a good flow for the last 16 months, found her rhythm by showing a gutsy performance and successfully defended her Swiss Open title on Sunday, March 18, in
Switzerland.
The World Number Five Saina, who was the defending Champion in the tournament, showed an elevated performance in the title match and thrashed her higher ranked rival Wang Shixian of China in an emphatic fashion.
The second seed in the tournament Wang Shixian, who has been placed at Number three in the Women’s Singles world rankings, could not live up to expectations as her Indian opponent was in her prime form.
Saina consumed 48 minutes in the court to overpower her higher ranked Chinese challenger in straight games without facing any sort of confusion in the whole contest.
After the match a delighted Saina said, “Playing a Chinese is never easy. I needed one big match to find my rhythm, and it worked out perfectly today. I was relaxed, took no pressure at all, and was picking every shuttle. I was feeling good about my game
and enjoyed a match thoroughly after a long time. I didn’t let nervousness mess up my game.”
She further added, “I can say now that I’ve got my form back. Forcing a Chinese rival to make errors was satisfying.”
In the opening set of title match, Saina was in full swing as she did not show mercy to her opponent in the opening half and remained successful in establishing a wonderful lead of 11-3 until the one-minute interval.
Shixian was completely unable to cope up with the perfection and attacking play of her opponent and remained struggling far behind in the first half.
However, the Chinese geared up her speed in the second half of first set and played positive badminton. She did not make hasty strokes and managed to bridge the huge difference by reaching 16-16.
At this crucial stage, Saina again took over the control by playing fast badminton and took the set with a close 21-19 score on the board.
In the second set, both ladies snapped each other’s heel in the opening rallies and remained toe-to-toe until the score reached at 7-7.
At this stage, the Indian played with wonderful precision by manipulating the loopholes of Shixian and took a comfortable lead of 11-7 until the 60-second interval in the second game.
After the break, Shixian changed her strategy and dominate the game at net. She remained successful in ending the deficit and levelled the score at 13-13.
Nevertheless, Saina geared up her speed and managed to occupy the driving seat. She remained ahead of her Chinese challenger at this stage and ended the game with an incredible margin of 21-16.
Saina emerged as the winner of this 48-minute match in straight games with an impressive 21-19 and 21-16 score on the board. With this convincing victory, she successfully defended her title and became the first Indian to win back-to-back title at Swiss
Open.
This elevated performance of Saina indicates that she has gotten rid of her injuries and also has overcome her bad patch that has been disturbing her flow to win any title at international stage for the last one year.
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