Baddies best of them all

THE TRIBUNE @ CWG
Rohit Mahajan 
Sports Editor 

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Kidambi Srikanth has too much respect for Lee Chong Wei, the badminton legend, to belittle him in any way; Srikanth is not willing to consider that he may have prevented the great Malaysian from playing his best game on Monday. “It’s never like that!” says Srikanth after beating Lee Chong in the final of the mixed doubles event. “He’s someone who’s been the world No. 1 for so many years. It definitely cannot be the case that an opponent will not allow him to play at his best! It’s just that I played well, and that’s all I want to say! I won’t really comment about his game.”

Well, a comment anyway on Lee Chong’s game: It’s a thing of beauty, made of steel and silk, muscle and grace; his speed is phenomenal, his ability to manipulate the angles of the shuttle-path with a slight flick of the wrist is breathtaking, his ability to create space in the opponent’s half is just amazing.

All this counted for nothing against Srikanth, who won 21-17 21-14 in merely 43 minutes. Srikanth’s victory was critical because it put India 2-0 up, and needing only one more win to secure gold. With Saina Nehwal yet to play, India’s spirits soared, and Malaysia’s suffered.

Lee Chong had beaten Srikanth in all four of their previous matches; Srikanth had been unable to take a game off Lee Chong in the past. The last of their matches, though, was played nearly three years ago. Srikanth is much stronger now than then. Lee Chong said the better man won today. “No, I wasn’t facing any injury problems,” said the former world No. 1. “I tried my best, but he was too good today. The better man won today.”

Asia in Oz

The Malaysians and Indians who’d packed the stands had fun with the game and emotions; the Indians were in greater voice, which only got amplified by India’s wins in the mixed-doubles and men’s singles matches; the Malaysians found their spirits and voice as their team took the men’s doubles in straight games.

India’s coach P Gopichand had asked his doubles specialists to give him at least two wins out of the three doubles contests. “He asked us to win at least two doubles events, out of the mixed-doubles, men’s doubles or women’s doubles,” said doubles specialist Chirag Shetty. “We were confident about Saina and Srikanth in the singles.” Gopichand was perhaps more confident about Saina vs Soniia than Srikanth vs Lee Chong. But Srikanth, playing his best ever against Lee Chong, gave India a thrilling, final push toward gold.

Saina vs Soniia

After Malaysia’s men made it 1-2, it was down to Saina and Soniia Cheah, the world No. 29, and a terrific battle took place; Soniia’s game today belied her ranking. She made Saina run hard to the flanks, pulled her to the net with skilful drops, or smashed hard with power and placement. Saina, 5kg lighter over the last two months, ran hard and moved well.

But Saina seemed over-eager; especially in the second game, she tended to rush her shots, and made unforced errors at the net or beyond the opponent’s baseline. It turned out to be a weird sort of match — in the two games she won, Saina had leads of 10 and 12 points; in the game she lost, the second, she seemed to have switched off.

In the first, Saina trailed Soniia 9-11 — then she zoomed off, reeling 12 points in a row. In the second, Saina led 9-7 and 13-11, but lost the game at 19-21. The third game was a bit like the first as Soniia, leading 9-8, lost 21-9 after seeming to lose her nerve. Saina later said she had a lot of respect for Soniia. “She plays tricky shots,” she said. “She’s also playing lots of long rallies, which I’ve never seen Malaysians doing that. A different kind of game.”

Wild celebrations

Saina doesn’t often go for hyperbole, but she declared that she wasn’t going to sleep tonight. “I’m blessed,” she gushed. “The first time we won the bronze in the team championship (2006 CWG), I was there. The first time we won silver, I was there! And now we’ve won the first gold, I’m there!”

“I’m happy that I could get the winning point for my team and we won the gold medal,” she continued. “This is very big for us. Gold is something different. We’re not going to sleep tonight!”

Gopichand too was elated, but he’s good at returning to his poker-faced self after the job is done. “I’ve been part of many team events like this over the years, so that experience helps,” he said. “Each one has to go out and do the job. It’s very important that the team sticks together. Keep spreading positivity. If you have the lead to start off with, it helps spread positivity.”

Yes, that did happen today; the tide of positivity washed away the sense of negativity — remember, Saina had been unhappy over her father not being provided accommodations at the Games Village, and even threatened to pull out. Gopi said he didn’t care about any of that. “Look, I don’t read the newspapers!” he said. “We had good preparations. Matches can go either way, today they went our way, so I’m glad.” As was the Indians in the boisterous crowd, Indians back home, and neutral fans of sport, too, for the skills on display were worthy of a final.

INDIANS IN ACTION

Boxing

Men’s 46-49kg quarters

Amit Panghal vs A Ahmed 9:17am

Men’s 91kg quarters

Naman Tanwar vs 

F Masoe 10:32am

Men’s 56kg quarters

Hussamuddin Mohammed vs E Mulenga 2:47pm

Men’s 69kg quarters

Manoj Kumar vs 

T Nickolas 3:32pm

Men’s +91kg quarters

Satish Kumar vs 

N Paul 4:17pm

Hockey

Men Pool B

India vs Malaysia 5am

Women Pool A

India vs South Africa 3pm

Table Tennis

Women’s singles Group 2

V Sutar vs S Chan 9am

Women’s singles Group 1

M Sarkar vs M Tapper 12noon

Shooting

Men’s 50m rifle prone qualification

Gagan Narang, 

Chain Singh 4:30am

Women’s 25m pistol qualification precision

Annu Singh, 

Heena Sidhu 4:30am

Athletics

Men’s 400m hurdles Round 1

Ayyasamy Dharun 6:45am

Women’s 400m semifinal 1

Hima Das 4:46pm

Men’s 400m final

Muhammed Anas 5:18pm

Squash

Women’s doubles Pool C

J Chinappa/D Pallikal  vs F Zafar/M Zafar 6:30 am

Mixed doubles Pool E

D Pallikal/S Ghosal vs F Mary/K Ray 8:45am

Mixed doubles Pool E

D Pallikal/S Ghosal vs M Zafar/T Aslam 2:15pm

Mixed doubles Pool H J Chinappa/H Sandhu vs L Caroline/K Jacob 3:45pm

OTHER RESULTS

WEIGHTLIFTING: (Men): (105kg): Pradeep Singh (silver); (+105kg): Gurdeep Singh finished fourth; (women): (+90kg): Purnima Pandey finished sixth; (90kg): Lalchhanhimi finished last

TABLE TENNIS: The Indian men’s team — Harmeet Desai, Sharath Kamal and Sathiyan Gnanasekaran — claimed an emphatic 3-0 win over Nigeria in the final

HIGH JUMP: Tejaswin Shankar finished fifth (2.21m) to enter the final. Among others who advanced were Australian cricketer Mitchell Starc’s younger brother Brandon Starc

WOMEN'S  400m HEATS: MR Poovamma finished fifth (53.72s); Hima Das third (52.11s)

MEN'S 400m: Muhammed Anas qualified for final (45.44s)

MEN'S SHOT PUT: Tejinder Singh finished eighth (19.42m)

BOXING: (60kg): Manish Kaushik bt M Alexander 4-0; (52kg) Gaurav Solanki bt A Ampiah 5-0

SWIMMING: (50m freestyle): Virdhawal Khade finished sixth in heats; (200m backstroke): Sirhari Nataraj finished sixth in heats men’s 100m: South Africa’s Akani Simbine won the 100m gold (10.03s). His country mate Henricho Bruintjies took silver in 10.17s. Jamaica’s Yohan Blake finished third in 10.19s.