Saina Nehwal’s new training regimen has brought her out of the comfort zone and that is a good thing

When Saina Nehwal was forced to play the Premier Badminton League group match on the first day of the new year in place of an injured Rituparna Das, the 28-year-old literally ran out of gas midway through the second game and lost rather easily.

The lack of fitness was understandable given that the 2018 Commonwealth Games gold medallist had not been playing much since losing the Syed Modi BWF World Tour Super 300 final in November due to a shin fracture. Since then she was concentrating on rehab as well as preparing for her wedding ceremony.

But despite all those limitations, Nehwal showcased her tactical superiority in the first game she won and if one observed carefully, the minute changes in her movement that she had been working on were clearly visible.

However, none of that would have given even Nehwal the confidence of challenging for a title in the first month of the new year. She reached the semi-finals of the Malaysia Masters and then bagged her first title on the badminton circuit in two years when Carolina Marin retired hurt in the final of the Indonesia Masters on Sunday.

“I never thought I would go as far in the tournament as I did so soon after the serious injury I had. I took a break for the whole of December. I wasn’t even playing that month. I didn’t even do any kind of training. The doctor said I couldn’t do any running or any impact training. It had to be only slow movements and he said I could only do very light training for two weeks,” said Nehwal in the post-match media conference.

Mind you, the 28-year-old has never been one of the more technically-gifted players on the badminton circuit. She made up for it with her superior fitness levels and the ability to keep the shuttle in play long enough to ensure that the opponent wilts under pressure.

But since the career-threatening knee injury just before the 2016 Rio Olympics and the subsequent surgery, Nehwal had been lacking the conviction to push herself beyond certain limits. Indeed, one wondered how she would compete against much-younger opposition.

Her contemporaries, including the likes of Yihan Wang and Xin Wang, never really recovered from their knee injuries and called time on their badminton careers by the time they entered their late 20s while London Olympics gold medallist Li Xuerui needed two years before she could return to the circuit after her knee surgery and is still finding her way to the top.

In contrast, Nehwal has maintained her position among the top stars of the game and has never been out of top-20 in the world ranking despite the surgery which led to regular niggles over the last two years.

Since returning from surgery, she won a bronze medal in the 2017 World Championship and the 2018 Asian Games but the titles on the BWF Tour were eluding her. The loss against Marin in the World Championship last year demanded a re-evaluation of her plan going forward.

Out of her comfort zone

A session was added to just work on her movements while going towards the net under the watchful eyes of P Kashyap and Nehwal was forced to come out of her comfort zone and push herself without thinking too much about the possible injuries.

The results showed rather quickly as she reached the Denmark Open final by beating the likes of Nozomi Okuhara and Akane Yamaguchi. She has since beaten the former twice more.

But the most heartening part of Nehwal’s run in Malaysia and Indonesia was that despite not being anywhere near peak fitness, the 28-year-old could keep pace with her opponents with precise court movements and a tactical game that forced the opponent to play to her strengths.

And in Saturday’s semi-final against He Bingjiao, whom she was playing for the first time, Nehwal successfully changed the tempo of the game in the decider after Kashyap egged her to play faster and managed to outplay an opponent seven years younger to her.

Those who have known Nehwal from her sub-junior days are aware of the London Olympics bronze medal winner’s insatiable hunger to win fair and square. And this is precisely why she wasn’t happy with the way she bagged the Indonesia Masters title.

While Nehwal has managed to get the better of most of her other opponents in the last 12 months, Marin and world number one Tai Tzu Ying have been consistently outplaying her thanks to their ability to maintain a much-higher tempo through the match and the variation they possess.

Nehwal knows that there is some way to go before she can challenge the two but has definitely taken concrete steps in that direction over the past six months by working on her movement and technical abilities as she eyes another medal-winning performance at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

There is still over a year left for the Games and Nehwal has a dual challenge of maintaining the progress while ensuring that the body does not break down under the increasing workload during the qualification process.

India’s most decorated badminton player would be in her 30s by the time the Games kick off in Tokyo. But even her staunchest critics won’t count her out because with Saina, there is always a chance.