It’s good girls playing badminton: Saina

Tribune News Service

Dehradun, October 27

Ace badminton player and London Olympics bronze medallist Saina Nehwal today said, “I have considerably recovered from my knee injury and will be fully fit within two weeks”. She expressed happiness over more girls playing badminton. “Girls must come forward and that is good,” she asserted.

She was in Dehradun to attend the fifth Founders Day celebrations of Ecole Globale International Girls School. Saina, while addressing mediapersons, said she hoped she would be fully fit within two weeks following which she would look forward to coming tournaments. It may be recalled Saina’s knee injury affected her progress in the badminton event in the Rio Olympic 2016.

Saina said the infrastructure for badminton sport was not up to the mark in northern states compared to southern states. She added there were two badminton academies in southern states but none in northern states.

She underlined the need for having ample number of coaches to groom players to win medals. She said there were not enough coaches, thus affecting the performance of our players when it gets to clinching medals in the Olympics.

She said it was good that badminton was becoming popular in the country with lot of youngsters playing the sport. “There are many youngsters such as Lakshya Sen in the Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy who are playing great and could be a medal hopeful in the coming years,” Saina added.

She, however, acknowledged the fact that parents were still unwilling to send their children for sports on the professional front.