I found this twitter message very intriguing: Saina should start tutions: 'How to handle pressure,with Saina Nehwal'. I am sure Sindhu and Srikanth would be the first two admissions. #BAC2018 " Lol
Pullela Gopichand writes about Saina Nehwal. Link: https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/sharply-sped-the-shuttle-by-pullela-gopichand/300474 SAINA NEHWAL Sharply Sped The Shuttle | By Pullela Gopichand Talent, bloody-mindedness combined to make Saina Nehwal a badminton icon, writes Pullela Gopichand. PULLELA GOPICHAND Getty Images As India turns 71 next week, Outlook zeroed in on 21 individuals who have made a lasting impression on this country – for both good and bad – so far in the 21 st century. And we got 21 equally important personalities to write on the 21 individuals we chose. In this column, Pullela Gopichand writes on badminton player Saina Nehwal. Gopichand says Saina has changed the very profile of the sport for the entire country. I have been with Saina Nehwal since 2004, so it has been many years spent together during her journey. What struck me very early, more than anything else, was her outstanding wins—she would go and beat top players or senior players when she was young. And, from the tenacity with which she fought in the matches and the way she trained, it was obvious that she had the talent to become a top player. Saina was not somebody who was talented from the perspective of an Indian’s strength and stroke-play. But from the physical and mental standpoint, she really stood out among her contemporary players, for the way she fought and, more importantly, the way she fashioned those wins. For those reasons, she was special. Whether it was her mixed team silver at the 2006 Commonwealth Games or her Philippines Open triumph, also in 2006, the signs of a bright and successful career were visible pretty early. Even in 2005, she had won a satellite event in Delhi, beating senior players. There were enough instances where she showed her abundant talent in terms of grit and performance at the highest level. There are many champions who are there, but the fact that she has been consistent over the years is quite creditable. If you look at her career, she had title wins as early as 2006 and today, 12 years down the line—it has been a long career—she has wins at all major events multiple times. To win consistently when the Chinese were on top of the world was a superb achievement. She showed to people across the world how the Chinese wall could be broken. It was, in fact, Saina versus China. The moment Saina could break in, other countries, whether it was Japan or Thailand or Spain or Denmark, many of them started to find ways to breach the Chinese bastion. On that front also, Saina’s contribution in world badminton will definitely be something to be remembered. Saina’s title wins at the Indonesia Open Superseries in 2009, 2010 and 2012—she was runner-up in 2011—are big and very special. I would say that for an Indian athlete to win so many titles so consistently is something amazing, and I believe that she has some more years left and can produce some very good results. Among the top three achievements of Saina would be reaching the quarter-finals of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, because it was important that she established herself and people had started to recognise her as a big player in the making in 2008 itself. Another big achievement was the 2012 London Olympics, where she won a bronze, as well as the 2018 Commonwealth Games gold in Melbourne. I don’t think there have been many lows in Saina’s career, but losing the opportunity to win the World Championships in 2015, when she had to settle for silver, and in 2017, when she managed a bronze, missing the All-England title and the failure to convert the opportunity to win a medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics were her lows. I think she could have closed, at least, one of the two—the World Championships and the All-England—and ended up with a medal. She could have won a medal in Rio too. Actually, the lowest point in her career was the Rio Olympics. In my opinion, the way she was playing she could have expected to win a medal. I thought she had a chance to win a gold medal there but for the injury she sustained in her second group match against Ukraine’s Maria Ulitina. She crashed out and was out of badminton for some time. But, overall in her career, it has been rise and rise, not many lows. Overall, Saina has always bounced back pretty quickly after a loss or a couple of losses. She may not be very articulate, but she is very smart in making decisions that are important to her. And when things start slipping out of her hands, she makes those calls. She is a smart athlete and a great fighter. I have not seen an athlete who has more adrenalin and who can keep pushing oneself as Saina does. She is an amazing athlete to work with. Going forward, she will face a lot of challenges from younger players, but that’s what motivates her. She has a good team around her and, hopefully, she will do well in the years to come. I am saying this because an athlete’s career age across sports has gone up. Sports nutrition, sports medicine and mental training have all helped Saina. And if she takes good care of her body, I am sure she can go for a few years more. I would rate Saina as a top athlete of the 21st century for the simple reason that she has changed the very profile of the sport for the entire country. We have had great champions in the past, whether it is Nandu Natekar or Prakash [Padukone] sir, the people who have done very well on the men’s side, but on the women’s side to have somebody win against top players of the world is something that hadn’t happened. We Indians for a very long time just felt that Indian women were not strong enough, but Saina changed that whole perception. And, today, we have other players joining in as well. So, that makes it very special, because she was able to change the contours of a sport in the country. For that I think a lot of credit goes to her.
Link: https://thebridge.in/dear-saina-when-india-needed-a-hero-to-look-up-to-you-always-stepped-up/ Dear Saina; when India needed a hero to look up to, you always stepped up. By Deepshikha Chatterjee - August 26, 2018 Dear Saina. I will speak for myself here, and I will speak as a woman who has grown up watching you. Popular belief back when I first showed the slightest signs of interest in sports was that this was not a domain that girls should be associating themselves with. I lacked a female sporting idol I could relate to- someone who was not double my age, someone who could do my talking for me. I being a girl had a point to prove. In 2006, you proved it for me. You were 16- a couple of years older to me. At 16, you became the youngest Asian to win a 4-star BWF tournament. At 16, you brought back a medal from the Junior Championships. Here I was wondering whether stereotypes would ever be broken and your racquet proved more effective than anything I had ever said or done till date. You gave me a hero. Silently, in your way, you assured a lot of girls like me that things would change when it came to perceptions about female sportspersons. You would make sure of that. Every once in a while there comes an athlete whose legend grows so big that you cannot remember a time when they were not playing. Alternatively, you do not want to think about a time when they will no longer be actively competing. You are that athlete for Badminton. Very simply put, you came, you saw, and you conquered. There was a time when no one believed that India would ever emerge as a superpower in the sport of Badminton. Sure, we have had legends before you, their towering statures looming as long as they played the sport. But they have been rare and intermittent in number. For 12 years, you have kept Badminton alive in the minds of Indians. You never let them forget you. You consistently made headlines; you stood up as an idol for an entire generation of Indian girls who probably never knew about the option of choosing sports as their destiny. You did it all, and you did it at an exponentially young age. In India, we have a funny way of hero-worshipping athletes. We may have celebrated you with great pomp and regard when you became the first Indian woman to win an individual Olympic medal but it took us just a second to criticise you when you were going through a rough patch. You see, we had become so used to you consistently winning, we refused to accept a scenario where Saina Nehwal would not win a medal. We turned to criticism; we abandoned you. You had a rough, inconsistent year in 2013 and most of us did not take longer than a second to write you off. There was a period when you had a series of losses against lower ranked players, your ranking slipped. People started giving up on you. They forgot that you had never given up on them. You are 28 now. You have seen the demographics of Indian Badminton change since you first stepped into it. You have seen players come and go. Through it all, you silently fought through. You gave India the opportunity to boast about you when you climbed up to the World No one rank in 2015. Every single time you have been underestimated, you have come back stronger. You proved a point, Saina. You taught us that a single person is often enough to inspire an entire generation. You showed us the virtue of patience. Skill is not the only thing that makes a sportsperson. Determination, strength and a positive attitude build up champions. And who has personified that as consistently as you? An entire nation stood tall and proud with you through your various achievements. And today, you have given them another opportunity to do that. Indian Badminton is where it’s at because of you. It makes me, personally, very glad to see you’re not going away from the court any time soon. You have left an indelible impression on me. I grew into an adult, but somewhere, I remain that 10-year old girl who is just immensely proud of her idol. When you assured yourself of an Asian Games medal today, the only major one you were missing, the relief on your face made me smile. It has been an hour since that moment, and I still haven’t stopped smiling. When the country needed a hero, Saina, you have always stepped up to the task. You are Indian Badminton. Without you, none of the rest would have been possible. History remembers the winners. I have been lucky enough to have watched you play. If I ever come across a similarly lost 10-year old, I’ll tell her your story. I’ll let her know how the ripples of your legacy combined to form the strong wave that we see in Indian Badminton today. I’ll tell her to watch out for you. Because I know you’ll always be there for Indian Badminton.
Saina Nehwal and Parupalli Kashyap will get married on Dec 16, 2018. Saina and Kashyap have been secretly dating for some years. Link: https://www.timesnownews.com/sports...-cup-manchester-city-ease-into-last-16/290092 Saina Nehwal, Parupalli Kashyap to get married on December 16 in a private ceremony: Report Sports Updated Sep 26, 2018 | 09:35 IST | Times Now Digital Badminton stars Saina Nehwal and Parupalli Kashyap are set to tie the nuptial knot on December 16 in a private ceremony, with a grand reception planned on December 21. Saina Nehwal and Parupalli Kashyap to get married | Photo Credit: Instagram Two famous names in the Indian Badminton, Saina Nehwal and Parupalli Kashyap, have reportedly decided to tie the nuptial knot, with the wedding planned to take place on December 16 in a private affair that would not have more than 100 people involved. The couple has also decided to host a grand reception 5 days later on December 21 for the who's who of the industry as well as the outsiders. In the report filed by TOI, a source has informed them that the wedding planning has been going on in both the families for a while now and they have zeroed in on December 16 as the date. "Both families had been planning the wedding for a while now. Now they have finalised the date. The arrangements are all for December 16," the source said. About the relationship of Saina and Kashyap, the two have allegedly been seeing each other for a decade but have kept it hidden from the eyes of the world very well. The two have always maintained that they are good friends with each other but nothing more on the subject has ever come out. With the wedding now decided, there's literally nothing to hide for the duo. Saina and Kashyap are said to have first met in the year 2005 when they started training together under Pullela Gopichand. As they tie the knot later this year, Saina-Kashyap would come in the category of all-sport couples like Dipika Pallikal-Dinesh Karthik, Geeta Phogat-Pawan Kumar, Ishant Sharma-Pratima Singh and wrestlers and Sakshi Malik-Satyawart Kadian. Both the shuttlers have various laurels to their names, with Saina undoubtedly being one of India's most biggest badminton players who has bagged more than 20 major titles. While the 28-year-old had famously won an Olympic bronze and a silver at the World Championships, the 32-year-old Kashyap also was once ranked world No. 6. Saina Nehwal has also been working on her biopic, featuring actress Shraddha Kapoor, although no release details about the same has been confirmed as yet.
Good for them. It is almost a full stop to her career . After olympics, she will retire i guess. Sent from my SM-G600FY using Tapatalk
I am hoping Saina Nehwal will defer her retirement till 2022. There will be a void in WS once Saina retires. 2022-24 is when the next batch of juniors should start showing some progress.
I think it all depends on how she fairs in next two years and so on. If she manages to win medals and titles here and there she might continue but if she is unable to keep up with the top players she might call it a career soon. I still think she will give Tokyo Olympics a shot and will look to medal there and no less. No matter what, it's been a wonderfully inexplicable career for Saina, and we are so proud of her to put Indian badminton in a position where it is now. And congratulations to both Saina and Kashyap.
