Saina Nehwal as debuting at badminton’s World Championships in September of 2006 at age 16, when the annual showpiece last pit-stopped in Madrid, Spain. As the World-event returns to Spain this winter – to Carolina Marin’s hometown, Huelva – Nehwal will be missing from the global knockouts for the first time in 12 editions.
Ravaged by injuries for a large part of the past two years, the 31-year-old’s dawdling career has been in free-fall, the plunge now seems starker since she won’t be at the Worlds.
Eight quarterfinals and two medals – a silver in 2015 and bronze in 2017 – from 11 outings might seem like a fulfilling round-off to an accomplished career. But the missing World title will remain the defining crown that eluded Indian badminton’s path-breaker, though not from want of effort. In a country starved of top-notch world glory, the consistency of those eight quarters – starting 2009 through 2018 and two medals – can appear adequate.
PV Sindhu didn’t really allow for any lingering regrets to set in for Indians, nailing the title in 2019 and raking in a world record-equalling five medals. But for the number of years Nehwal endured the rigours of top-grade competition – she’s peerless for staying that fit that long – the missing World title, will leave a desolation of a vacant trophy shelf.
This wistfulness is solely due to what used to be her indestructible mental strength and stubbornness to win, not so much the skill and physical superiority, where Sindhu was always notches above.
Not happiest hunting grounds
For all that consistency, the World Championships were not the easiest outing for Nehwal. Clearly flummoxed by why she was not medalling in her first seven appearances, she moved cities and coaching centres to hunt down that coveted podium. In the one shot Nehwal got at the crown, Marin was unstoppable, inciting anarchy into her game and shredding the Indian in the second set in Jakarta 2015.
But much before Indonesia, where she had won Tour events when much younger, turned sour, it was the China-saturated labyrinth that brought Nehwal down at the Worlds.
It is unthinkable now, given Chinese women’s singles shuttlers haven’t made the World Championship finals since 2014. But Nehwal started playing at the global event when one country held the monopoly on winning medals at the non-Olympic year Major.
The first five of seven defeats Nehwal suffered at the event from 2006-14, came at the hands of Chinese players Jiang Yanjiao (2006), Wang Lin (2009), Wang Shixian (2010), Wang Xin (2011) and Xuerui Li (2013) – besides Pi Hongyan (2007), the Frenchwoman of Chinese heritage. This was also the era when three of the four semi-finalists at the Worlds would be Chinese: in 2007, 2009 and 2010. In both 2006 and 2011, two of the top four were Chinese.
When Sindhu broke out onto the World scene in 2013 and 2014 it coincided with China’s stock falling at the event – the towering Indian herself packing off a fair few, sometimes one after another. But China was a diminishing force in women’s singles (between them Chen Yufei and He Bingjiao have just three bronzes). Nehwal too had creaking wheels for feet and a bunch of injuries by then. Her best chance was perhaps in 2015, and even that wasn’t much of a contest.
Her happiest outing though might be in 2017. She returned from an ACL to beat younger and much more sprightly opponents to grab bronze.
The Downhill begins
In 2018, Nehwal would demystify Intanon Ratchanok in a clever game, but run into a rampaging Marin who was chomping Indians raw that season. Nehwal went down 21-6, 21-11; Sindhu wasn’t much of a challenge either to the Spaniard in the final.
Perhaps, Nehwal’s last flailing fight at the World Championship stage came in the pre-quarters last time in Basel 2019, when she had match points over Danish Mia Blichfeldt. But just couldn’t lock the match – hurtling to 27-25 in the second after getting salty over a line call, and then imploding 21-12 in the decider.
The last two years have seen her struggle visibly on courts around the world, a bunch of mid-game wincing retirements and withdrawals ensuring that all the accumulated experience comes to nought when the feet to run to the lines and hips to go across the body chasing the bird are frozen rigid into immobility.
There have been a few tearful exits from the World Championships for Nehwal over the years. A DNS at Huelva in the same year she failed to qualify for the Olympics for the first time, might be a signal of a career nearing its end. The 2022 season has the Asian Games and Commonwealth Games – a title defense in the latter – and also the unfinished chapter of the All-England . She’s known for resurrecting lost causes, but even a phoenix must get burnt out surely.