Saina criticises BAI’S timing of selection trials for CWG, Asiad
NEW DELHI: Former world No 1 Saina Nehwal lashed out at the Badminton Association of India (BAI) on Thursday, criticising the timing of selection trials that will be held at the IG Sports Complex here from April 15-20.
On April 1, BAI announced that they would be holding trials for the CWG (July 28-August 8 in Birmingham), Asian Games (Sept 10-25 in Hangzhou), and Thomas and Uber Cups (May 8-15 in Bangkok).
The trials will also choose the core group for the 2024 Paris Games. Olympic bronze medallist Saina had opted out of the trials, citing a packed schedule. “Surprised to see all the articles stating that I don’t want to defend my CWG title and my Asiad medal. I’m just not participating in the trials because I just got back from three weeks of Europe events and according to the schedule there’s Asian Championships (April 26-May 1 in Manila) in two weeks’ time,” tweeted the two-time CWG champion, tagging BAI, Sports Authority of India (SAI) and sports minister Anurag Thakur.
“As a senior player to participate in back-to-back events nonstop is impossible and it’s risking injuries, such short notice is not possible. I’ve conveyed this to BAI but there has been no response. It seems like they’re happy to put me out of CWG and Asiad. I wish we had better understanding about how to manage a schedule and not announce events with 10 days’ notice. I’m world No 23 and I almost beat the world No 1 Akane (Yamaguchi) in All England. One loss at India Open and BAI tries to pull me down. Shocking.”
Saina has had a poor run due to injuries and niggles over the past few seasons. She suffered four second round defeats this year, losing to lower-ranked players. She had also skipped the world championships last year.
Top shuttlers PV Sindhu (women’s singles), Lakshya Sen, Kidambi Srikanth, HS Prannoy (men’s singles) and men’s doubles pair of Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy were selected directly for the Asiad and CWG based on their world ranking.
“We want to give each and every player enough chance to prove their abilities and this is the best possible format that BAI and the selection committee together came up with. The players ranked top-15 in the world have been selected directly as announced earlier,” BAI general secretary Sanjay Mishra said.
An exception was made for world No 23 Prannoy who made the Swiss Open final in March. “Prannoy’s name was included as selectors were unanimous as he has performed consistently at top events in the recent time and has beaten some top players,” said Mishra.
Other hopefuls will have to go through the trials. Players in top-16 of singles and top-8 in doubles of national rankings, shuttlers between 16-50 in world rankings (as of Mar 29) and the core group selected in November 2019 will be eligible for the trials, which is supposed to select a total of 60 players out of 120. The national ranking list is based solely on performances in the ranking tournaments in Chennai and Hyderabad last December.
SAINA NEHWAL
FORMER WORLD NO 1
I’m world No 23. I almost beat the world No 1 Akane in All England. One loss at India Open and BAI tries to pull me down