Saina crashes out in semifinals
WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS Saina puts up brave fight before losing to Japan’s Okuhara, settles for bronze
Saina Nehwal will have to wait for at least another year to realise her dream of winning a World Championships title after the Indian shuttler went down in the semi-finals. Saina had to settle for bronze after going down in a slugfest that lasted an hour and 14 minutes in Glasgow.
An all-India final was on the cards after both PV Sindhu and Saina qualified for the semi-finals but those hopes vanished when the 12th seed lost 21-12, 17-21, 10-21 to seventh seed Nozomi Okuhara, who had lost six out of seven meetings to Saina before Saturday’s match.
The World No.12 Japanese came out with her best game and tired out Saina to proceed to her maiden World Badminton Championships final. In the process, Nozomi has defeated the two women who played the final of the last edition of the Worlds (Saina and Spain’s Carolina Marin) in consecutive matches.
Saina however should not lose heart as she has become only the second Indian after Sindhu to have won multiple World Championships medals. She had to settle for silver in 2015.
Ever since her knee injury at the 2016 Rio Olympics, Saina has not been able to regain her winning edge. However, reaching the last four stage at this prestigious event and returning with a bronze is no mean feat for a shuttler who never dropped out of the world’s top-10 until now.
The 27-year-old took off brilliantly in the first game. Saina moved well, did not give her opponent chances and kept her on the edge throughout the first
game. The former World No 1 showed glimpses of playing like the Saina of old. She took the game 21-12.
Nozomi had to fight back in the second game, and she did well. The Japanese, who won a bronze at Rio Olympics, made sure she stayed in the lead, however slender it was so that it would help her close the game.
Saina levelled the game four times but her opponent, younger to Saina by five years, won four straight points from 17-17 to push the semi-final into the decider.
The momentum had shifted and with that Saina’s intensity too had dropped. After dominating the first game, she allowed Nozomi to fight back and level the match.
Saina started exactly the way she would have wanted to in the third game, with a 3-0 lead.
But she was tired by then. The agility she had displayed in the first game evaporated. Simultaneously, Nozomi found a surge of energy and won nine straight points to go 10-3 in the lead.
At this point the Japanese seventh seed was clearly outplaying Saina who had nothing going her way. Nozomi made Saina run around a lot and bagged the contest to move into the final.