Shuttler Supreme

There was a time, about a decade ago, when Saina Nehwal first began to make her mark in badminton, that her name was a cause of much confusion. Sania Mirza was then an established tennis star, arguably India’s best known sports personality who was not a cricketer, someone whose posters could be found splattered on the walls and cupboards of student hostels. So it wasn’t uncommon to spot newspaper pieces where Nehwal would be identified as ‘Mirza’, or hear entire conversations where the shuttler’s achievements would go unchecked as those of the tennis player. In comparison, Mirza rarely faced such mix-ups; talented and glamorous, she was a player of a more glorified game. Nehwal was, in public estimation, the lesser of the two. Last week, when Nehwal became World No 1 in badminton and a Shiv Sena member put up a placard congratulating her but mistakenly appending an image of the tennis player, he was a cause of much online mirth. We can all afford that laughter, because such an error is now rare. Everybody knows Nehwal the badminton player. She is, in fact, with all due respect to Mirza, the more famous and bigger achiever of the two.

Nehwal has done what very few sportspersons from India ever have. She has become the world’s top ranked player in a sport, a feat last achieved in badminton by Prakash Padukone. Over the past nine years, from when she burst on to the scene as a 16-year-old to now, when she is 25, her career has seen remarkable highs and lows. Just two years ago, in 2013, she was hampered by injury and failed to win a single tournament. That form followed her last year too. Her ranking also began to slip from her then career high of second to a low of ninth last year. PV Sindhu was meanwhile rising up the ranks, and to many she was the future of Indian badminton. Earlier this year, Nehwal reached the final of the All England Championship, just like the last two Indian badminton greats, Pullela Gopichand and Prakash Padukone. But she lost yet again, this time to the then World Champion, Carolina Marin, despite dominating the game early on. To many, she just wasn’t good enough to win against the top players. Last week, after winning the Yonex India Super Series tournament final against former world champion Ratchanok Intanon and becoming the No 1 player, Nehwal revealed how the pressure of not being able to beat the top players nearly made her quit the game. “I have taken many hard decisions to get here. I kept losing to the top players all the time; in fact, after last year’s World Championship, I even thought of quitting badminton,” she said. “It was a very dark time in my career. People were saying ‘Saina, your career is finished’.”

So Nehwal did the unthinkable. She parted ways with her long-time mentor and coach, Gopichand, and began to train under another former player, Vimal Kumar, at the Prakash Padukone Academy. There are a large number of players, both established and upcoming, who train under Gopichand at his Hyderabad academy, and perhaps Nehwal felt Gopichand wasn’t able to devote enough time on her. But to many, Nehwal’s decision to find another coach was nothing short of a betrayal. Things began to look up for Nehwal, though, after the change. Her coach Kumar and Padukone apparently formed the ideal support staff, sharing their experiences, coaching her on relaxing her mind under pressure and making tiny tweaks to her game, chiefly her movement across the court and her pickup shots. Nehwal told The Times of India last week, “My coach Vimal Kumar set a target of May this year to reach the No 1 rank. I did it in March itself.”

In the next few months, there are going to be many who will contest against Nehwal for her crown. But irrespective of whether she loses it or not, she is going to go down as perhaps India’s best badminton player, let alone be remembered as well or maybe even better than the tennis star whose first name sounds like hers.

badmintonGopichandPrakash PadukoneSaina NehwalWorld No 1