With a bronze medal in Indonesia, a resilient Saina Nehwal breaks her Asian Games hoodoo

Note: This article was originally published after Saina Nehwal’s quarter-final win on Sunday. On Monday, after her defeat to Tai Tzu Ying in the final, she finished her campaign with a bronze medal.

Soon after Saina Nehwal and PV Sindhu ensured that India would win at least two badminton medals from the 2018 Asian Games, nine-time national champion and now a commentator, Aparna Popat tweeted about how she was fed up of people asking her why India doesn’t enjoy success at the Asian Games.

The other person who would have been haunted by the 36-year individual medal drought in the Asian Games since 1982 would have been Saina Nehwal. Seeded second, the then 28-year-old was touted to win the gold medal eight years ago in Guangzhou given that she had won three back-to-back titles and her first Commonwealth Games gold in the second half of the year and was the player in form.

But she inexplicably lost her quarterfinal encounter against Hong Kong’s Yip Pui Yin, an opponent she never lost to since then. It was the match that caused first real friction between her and coach Pullela Gopichand, who berated her for taking her pre-match preparations rather lightly and for the next few months, Nehwal decided to train with Bhaskar Babu instead of the chief national coach.

The differences between her and Gopichand turned out to be a storm in the teacup and they came together once again to help India win the first Olympic medal at the 2012 London Games. But the Asian Games medal continued to elude Saina and India as she lost yet another quarterfinal, this time against Yihan Wang in the 2014 edition and even Sindhu came a cropper against little known Bellaetrix Manuputty of Indonesia.

And both would have known that the 2018 edition was probably their best chance to find a place on the podium given that the luck of the draw was clearly on their side.

While third seed Sindhu was playing only lower ranked opponents till the quarterfinals, Nehwal was drawn in former world champion Ratchnok Intanon’s quarter. But since returning from the career-threatening knee injury, Nehwal had not lost to the Thailand shuttler in their four meetings and had dropped just one game.

More than that head-to-head record, Nehwal had clearly got the hang of how to counter Ratchanok’s strengths with better control at the net and not allowing her to get under the shuttle to play her cross court drops.

A come-from-behind win

All she had to do was maintain her focus and keep the belief. And she did that brilliantly as she came back from a 3-11 deficit in the opening game to beat Ratchnok in straight games to ensure that she completed her set of medals in all world and continental competitions.

(UPDATE: She eventually lost to Tai Tzu Ying to finish with a bronze.)

Later speaking to reporters, Nehwal admitted that she had followed Gopichand’s instructions of keeping the phone away once the individual events started and just focus on the job at hand.

Even the high decibel levels at the Istora Senayan, the venue of badminton event, did not affect Nehwal and probably spurred her on when she was struggling to keep pace with Ratchnok. After all, it is a venue where the 28-year-old has won her first Superseries title back in 2009, reached her first and only BWF World Championship final in 2015 and has been a darling of the Indonesian badminton fans ever since she started challenging the hegemony of the Chinese 10 years ago.

When Scroll.in contacted Gopichand in Jakarta, the chief national coach did not divulge much about the pre-match preparations he asked Nehwal to follow but admitted that they did have a chat about it before the start of the singles event. “We didn’t really discuss anything (about the 2010 campaign) but I did speak to her about the mental and tactical preparation and I am very happy that we have both of them in the semifinals,” he said.

It was probably apt that Nehwal reached there first, thanks to the scheduling of the matches and would therefore be the first Indian women’s singles player to be assured of a medal in the Asian Games. Given the 28-year-old’s contribution in raising the profile of the sport in the country, she well and truly deserved the honour to end the 36-year medal drought on Sunday.

While Gopichand and even Nehwal and Sindhu would have been confident about reaching the last four once the draw was made it was important for them to not lose focus. While Sindhu got a wake up call in the opening match against Vietnam’s Vu Thi Trang (B) in the opening match, Nehwal hardly broke sweat in the opening two rounds and was in total control once she staged a fight back against Ratchnok in the first game on Sunday.

A bronze medal is just reward.