Fearing injury, Saina refuses to play on uneven court at Nationals
With All England Championships round the corner, Indian ace didn’t want to take any risk
GUWAHATI: Controversy erupted at the Senior National Badminton Championship on Thursday with defending champion Saina Nehwal refusing to play her singles match, citing a ‘poor playing surface‘ at the venue.
Olympic bronze-medallist Saina, who had suffered a shin injury late last year, took the court after Sameer Verma conceded his men’s singles tie following an achilles heels problem during his match.
Up against Shruti Mundada in the pre-quarters, Saina had a look at the surface and immediately made it clear that she won’t risk playing on it given that the All England Championship was around the corner.
The officials, led by Badminton Association of India Secretary (event) Omar Rashid, swung into action to sort out the issue. The BAI officials later convinced Saina, P Kashyap and Sai Praneeth to play in the evening.
“The wooden planks came out at a couple of places after Sindhu played her match. So they are now going to fix it. We will come back in the evening to play our pre-quarterfinal matches,” Saina’s husband and fellow player P Kashyap said.
The championship is being played on three courts at the Assam Badminton Academy. Kashyap, who was also there to play his men’s singles pre-quarterfinal match, went to the adjacent second court and inspected that as well along with Saina. Sindhu had competed on the same court in the morning, clinching a straight-game win over Malvika Bansod in the women’s singles pre-quarterfinals.
“We basically put together a new court. The wood inflated after Sindhu’s match so we had to postpone all matches on that court to the evening. We put a new court together in six hours,” BAI secretary (events) Omar Rashid said.
Saina returned later in the day to beat Shruti Mundada 21-11, 21-10 in the pre-quarters.